We live in lonely times.

That’s not an opinion. It’s fact.

In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General declared a loneliness epidemic, with about one in two adults reporting they felt lonely and isolated.

That loneliness is what attracted director Gleason Bauer to playwright Jen Silverman’s 2015 two-person, comedic-drama play, “The Roommate.”

The Fine Arts Center Theatre Co. will mount the production Thursday through March 1 at Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College.

“I always ask myself, ‘Why this play now?'” Bauer said. “At its heart is loneliness and what we do in the face of loneliness, and our desperation to connect and find meaning and purpose. It struck me as timely. How the people we come in contact with impact us and change us.”

The plot: Sharon, a divorced empty-nester living in the Midwest, needs a roommate to ease the financial burden. She takes in the mysterious Robyn, a lesbian from New York City with an estranged daughter and sketchy past. The two older women gradually and carefully get to know each other, slowly revealing details of their pasts, as they develop a friendship and make some surprising choices.

“It’s about the relationship the two of them forge,” Bauer said. “It’s about two women at a crossroads. There’s an old blues legend that says when you’re at a crossroads, in order to pass and head in a direction, you have to make a sacrifice. It’s about these two women who have to make a choice at the crossroads, and what they sacrifice.”

Susan Dawn Carson will play Sharon, and Elise Santora will play Robyn.

Who is Sharon?: She’s someone who has been outwardly focused, Bauer says, and hasn’t spent time examining her life, as she’s been busy serving as a mother and a wife. The play examines what happens when someone becomes more introspective at such a late point in life.

“This is a Buddhist term – she’s a hungry ghost,” Bauer said. “She’s trying to fill a hole in herself she doesn’t realize she has. But she feels really empty and so is grasping at things to fill the emptiness.”

Who is Robyn?: Bauer calls her a different kind of hungry ghost, defined as a being Buddhists say is driven by intense emotional needs.

“She had a full life,” Bauer said. “She has an addictive personality, and because of that, she’s trying to fill this void. Her life is more examined, and she’s more aware, but in the course of the play becomes increasingly aware.”

A review: “Those scenes detail the way the women warm to each other and begin to swap personality traits. Sharon samples Robyn’s almond milk and soon her disdain for conventionality; Robyn, at first secretive, begins to open up in response to Sharon’s guilelessness. They bond over being bad mothers to children who, now adults, keep their distance. And when Robyn eventually reveals her history as a scam artist, let alone a lesbian, Sharon becomes obsessed,” wrote New York Times critic Jesse Green in 2024 about a production that starred Patti Lupone as Robyn and Mia Farrow as Sharon.

IF YOU GO

What: “The Roommate” by Fine Arts Center Theatre Co.

When: Previews at 7 p.m. Thursday and 7:30 p.m. Friday, opens 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 7 p.m. Thursdays, 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays (except Feb. 21), 2 p.m. Sundays, through March 1; ASL performance, 5 p.m. Feb. 21

Where: Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, 30 W. Dale St.

Price: $30-$70, $17 college students on day of show; 719-634-5581, fac.coloradocollege.edu