Created and performed by Joanna Caplan, Total Verrückt! tells the story of the world-renowned Jewish cabaret performers held in the Dutch transit camp of Westerbork from 1942-44. Taking its name from the Camp Westerbok Theatre Group's final production and inspired by the diaries of Jewish-Dutch poet Etty Hillesum, cabaret stars Max Ehrlich, Johnny & Jones, and Dora Gerson, Total Verrückt! asks questions about the necessity of art as a means of survival and an act of resistance.

Joanna Caplan developed Total Verrückt! in residency at Double Edge Theatre’s Farm Center in Ashfield, Massachusetts, in collaboration with Double Edge Theatre Co-Artistic Director Matthew Glassman (Total Verrückt! Director) and Resident Artist Sarah Cormier (Total Verrückt! Designer). Her creation process combines Double Edge’s immersive physical and visual training methodology with research on the legacy of Jewish artists as a way of accessing her own ancestral memory. In weaving together stories and characters connected to pre-war Germany, the Weimar Republic and the height of the German Cabaret, Total Verrückt! explores the Jewish imagination in the context of a world at war, examining how we live through and transcend strange and dark times.