Shows Category: 2020–21

Celebrated author John D’Agata has just written a sublime and shattering magazine essay. But is his story true? And how negotiable are the facts? When the world’s most neurotically precise fact-checker appears on the author’s Las Vegas doorstep and starts dissecting his work, the ultimate showdown between “truth” and “accuracy” begins. As the deadline looms, the high-stakes world of publishing becomes a battle royale in this brand new comedy of conflict. Timely and terrific, this brainy Broadway hit wrestles with truth, what constitutes it, and who gets to decide.

In The Niceties, Zoe, a Black student at a liberal arts college, is called into her white professor’s office to discuss her paper about slavery’s effect on the American Revolution. What begins as a polite clash in perspectives explodes into an urgent debate about race, history, and power.

In Lewiston, Alice is an aging descendant of Meriwether Lewis, who sits at her roadside stand selling cheap fireworks while developers swallow the land around her. Enter Marnie, Alice’s long-lost granddaughter, proposing to buy the land and save her family’s legacy.

In Clarkston, Jake is a descendant of William Clark, who has made the journey out west from his home in Connecticut, anxious to find meaning in his own history. He meets Chris during a late-night shift at Costco, forming an awkward bond.

Can these individuals learn to help each other as they struggle to make a home in the vastness of the American landscape?

Forty-six plays. Forty-six First Ladies. This 110-minute journey through American history utilizes comedy, drama, music, dance and more as it surveys the lives of the women who have served (and avoided serving) as First Lady. 46 Plays… is a biographical, meta-theatrical, genre-bending look at gender, race, and everything else your history teacher never taught you about the founding (and the confounding) of America.

It can mean something different for everyone. For some it is a place, or people, or simply memories made over time. But “home” defines us all in one way or another, and this evocative word serves as the inspiration for FTC’s sixth monologue festival, featuring original pieces written just for us by playwrights from across our community and around the nation. A collection of stories in places borrowed and possessed, offering a thoughtful look at what it means to belong.