Shows Category: 2016-17

Free-spirited 21-year-old Leo sets off from the West Coast on an epic cross-country bike adventure. By the time he shows up at his grandmother Vera’s New York City apartment, his journey has taken some unexpected turns. Leo hopes for a short-term escape from the chain of events that has left him estranged from his family and friends. But as days turn into weeks, he and Vera bond over love, loss, and the difficulties of growing up and growing old. With both humor and heartbreak, 4000 Miles takes an intimate look at the road to self-acceptance we all must travel — and the unexpected connections we make along the way.

Anthony and Rosemary are facing down middle age from neighboring farms in rural Ireland. Only a strip of land separates these eccentric souls, but with a feud simmering between their families, these introverted misfits will need to overcome a childhood grudge and years of stubborn pride to find happiness. Flinty humor and poetic passion highlight this charming and poignant play about how it’s never too late to take a chance on love.

Elise Sabato is thrilled when her husband Brad returns from his deployment in Iraq, and their plans for a life and family together can finally be realized. But it soon becomes clear that for Brad, coming home is only the beginning of a long journey. It is up to Elise to find help for a man she no longer recognizes, who suffers from injuries that neither of them can see or understand. With a story set in Madison, and written and adapted by Wisconsin authors, Learning to Stay asks what you would do when the person you’re married to is no longer the person you married..

Chances are, you’ve had one – more than one. They can be inspiring, terrifying, tedious, nauseating, and profound. Jobs. Jobs put food on our tables, roofs over our heads, and (sometimes) anxiety in our hearts. FTC’s fourth monologue festival, Someone’s Gotta Do It, features a dozen original pieces written just for us by playwrights from across our community and around the nation, with characters sharing their work stories: the exhilarating, the necessary, and the outlandishly absurd.