School is in session! Manhattan Theatre Club brings Jonathan Spector’s play Eureka Day, directed by Anna D. Shapiro, to Broadway.
What's it all about? Eureka Day is a private California elementary school with a Board of Directors that values inclusion above all else – that is, until an outbreak of the mumps forces everyone in the community to reconsider the school’s liberal vaccine policy. As cases rise, the board realizes with horror that they’ve got to do what they swore they never would: make a choice that won’t please absolutely everybody.
Despite its familiar subject matter, Spector has explained that he wrote the play long before the COVID pandemic.
Before Broadway, the comedy had its world premiere at Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley, California as part of their 2017-2018 season and was commissioned through their Originate+Generate program. It went on to have its east coast premiere off-Broadway at Walkerspace in 2019, and opened at the Old Vic in London in 2022. It arrives on Broadway with an all new cast.
Jonathan Spector’s 2018 comedy Eureka Day mostly loses in its bright and bubbly Broadway premiere. The first monster it encounters is thematic. As with last season’s The Thanksgiving Play, which mocked a well-meaning elementary school drama teacher’s attempt to mount an even-handed history of the holiday, there are only so many laughs you can wring out of liberal cluelessness. Here, it’s the board members of a bougie California day school when faced with a mumps outbreak among its students. They’re the sort of people for whom things like “holding space” and “feeling seen” are paralyzing conundrums instead of useful frameworks in the fight for equity. The jokes at their expense start off strong but lose steam quickly, despite strong performances from a cast including Jessica Hecht and Thomas Middleditch.
Eureka Day feels timelier now than ever, fleshing out all sides of topical debates on the big stage with an excellent cast.
2024 | Broadway |
MTC Original Broadway Production Broadway |
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