Eureka Day on Broadway tickets

By: Jonathan Spector
Director: Anna D. Shapiro
Producer: Manhattan Theatre Club
Cast list: Jessica Hecht (as Suzanne), Thomas Middleditch (as Eli), Eboni Flowers (as Carina), Bill Irwin (as Don), Chelsea Yakura-Kurtz (as Meiko)
Sets: Todd Rosenthal
Costumes: Clint Ramos
Lighting: Jen Schriever
Sound: Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen
Other info: Original music by Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen, projection design by David Bengali, intimacy and sensitivity coordination by Ann C. James, vocal coaching by Gigi Buffington

A liberal school trying to make sense of its progressive vaccine policies may sound all too familiar in our post-pandemic world. However, that’s the brilliance of Jonathan Spector’s new play. Eureka Day was written in 2018, before COVID, lending it a timeless and universal appeal. Following successful runs in the Bay Area, where it won the Glickman Award and Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Award, it then traveled to London, earning rave reviews, before coming back to the United States for its Broadway bow.

The political gets personal in Spector’s play, which also lends it a sharp, biting humor. Private schools can have an air of taking themselves too seriously, which Spector wittily satirizes as he depicts the big wigs at small schools who won’t give an inch in the face of evolving events and a changing culture. Fans of cringe-comedy sit-coms and intellectual new plays will find lots to love in this dynamo hit.

What to watch for

• Anna D. Shapiro is known for staging August: Osage County, for which she won a Tony; a marvel director with a knack for new plays, she was also artistic director of Steppenwolf in Chicago.
• Manhattan Theatre Club has a track record for producing intelligent new plays that help audiences confront modern issues, as seen in Proof, Doubt, and The Children.
• Many plays are developed in New York, and sometimes in Chicago, but plays about and coming out of California are rarer, making this an auspicious debut for Jonathan Spector.
• Enjoying rave reviews for its London run, London Theatre praised the amazing humor in Eureka Day but also commended how the play “gets to the root of a deeper issue: our increasingly polarised world, in which arguments are based on feeling, not fact, and we become ever-more entrenched in our culture-wars tribes.”

Additional information

Children under 5 are not permitted in the theatre.

No weapons permitted on the premises. No outside food or beverages, electric scooters, e-bikes, or battery-powered transportation devices, except when medically necessary.

All items are subject to inspection. Anything brought into the theatre must fit on your lap or completely under your seat without blocking any aisles.

The use of cameras, cell phones, and other recording devices during the show is strictly prohibited by law, except when used for accessibility services.