Maxine Therese Linehan is an Irish American singer-songwriter and stage actress. Born in Newry, Northern Ireland, she performed as Nancy in Oliver! in the UK, touring it in Ireland and England with the Irish Operatic Repertory Company. Her job as a barrister in London took her to New York City in 2001, and six years later, she created an autobiographical show, So Far... which garnered her her first MAC Award nomination. In 2008, she co-founded the Alloy Theater Company with Michelle Pruett and starred in its production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's song cycle Tell Me on a Sunday, Jacqueline McCarrick's The Mushroom Pickers, and the company' first off-Broadway production, William Luce's Brontë: A Portrait of Charlotte.