Quick Center Premiere of The Loneliness Cure to Examine Public Health Crisis of Isolation | Press Releases

The Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts of Fairfield University announces the premiere of The Loneliness Cure on Tuesday, April 9, 2024, at 7 p.m. The production is the latest installment of the Global Theatre Performance Series: Theatre That Changes Our World.

Co-created by program founder Cheryl Wiesenfeld and writer/director/producer Melanie Hoopes, The Loneliness Cure examines our country's public health crisis of loneliness, isolation, and lack of social connection.

The performance is free to the public and reservations are required. A donation of $40 per person is suggested; all proceeds will benefit the Quick Center’s Arts for All program, designed to provide high-caliber, hands-on learning experiences for K-12 grade students in under-resourced schools.

Wiesenfeld and Hoopes engaged in extensive research and interviews to create The Loneliness Cure. The performance shares stories from real people – students, parents, and elders in our community – who have learned how to connect to others and themselves to forge a path toward more meaningful lives. Blessed Stephen ’26, a Fairfield University student who serves as the Quick Center Art & Social Change Fellow, helped to research and gather stories that offer the student perspective.

Spiritual leaders, teachers, law enforcement personnel, guidance counselors, psychological advisors, and social science professors, along with those who have found their footing in the new, uncertain, chaotic landscape of our times, will share their stories.

The overall message of The Loneliness Cure is one of hope – that we as individuals and as a society can find our way toward connection, community, and healing.

“Since the pandemic I’ve been concerned about the changes and disorientation I’ve seen around me as far as relationships, opioid abuse, alcoholism, and just general unhappiness, malaise, suicide and loneliness,” said Weisenfeld. “Melanie and I saw loneliness everywhere, and I believe we felt it in our own lives. So, out of those discussions came The Loneliness Cure. We feel this topic is very timely not only in the larger world, but also at a school such as Fairfield University.”

Melanie Hoopes added, "My hope is that the play will show the audience that they can stave off loneliness by actively creating more social connection. Bring back the front porch visits, stoop sitting, and small talk with others while waiting in line. It’s time to get to know your neighbors and let them know you. We are a deeply divided country and that will not shift if we stay isolated and distant from one another. Let’s work on knitting this country together one conversation at a time."

Global Theatre Performance Series: Theatre That Changes Our World, now in its eighth year at the Quick Center, was designed by Wiesenfeld to create a dialogue about our place in the world, and the role of social justice in our lives. Previous performances at the Quick include Cell, Gun Country, Shared Sentences, and more.

Cheryl Wiesenfeld is a Broadway and off-Broadway producer with many plays and musicals to her credit. She has won numerous awards for her productions, including the Drama League, Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, N.Y. Drama Critics awards, as well as four Tony Awards. Her prime interest is exploration of the social condition.

Melanie Hoopes is a writer/director/performer whose credits include Kindness Committee, Six Feet: A Play About What’s Between Us (RiverArts), Murder Birds! (or Suspending Tati Copeland) (Rivertowns LAB), Lethal Lit (IHeartRadio, EEP), One Giant Leap: The Apollo Moon Landing 50 Years On (New York Times), and Bloodline (Netflix).

Reservations for The Loneliness Cure are now available on quickcenter.com or by calling the Quick Center Box Office at 203-254-4010, Monday through Friday, from 12 to 5 p.m.