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.
Quick, think of something really humorous about vaccinations. No? Me neither, but playwright Jonathan Spector has done us all a favor and molded one of the most divisive, inane, grotesque and newly, resurgent issues of the day and polished it into a shiny, insightful and damn funny little gem so that all of us can ogle and ponder and reconsider just how in the name of Jonas Salk did we get here.
The whole ensemble excels, firmly steered by director Anna D. Shapiro to a hilarious state of bureaucratic and ethical crisis. In the end, consensus is reached, and the community heals—but not without a sacrificial lamb. I left the Friedman Theatre equally amused and disturbed: If a coterie of smart, morally sophisticated citizens devolves into chaos, what hope does a nation of poorly educated yahoos have? There’s no germ that spreads as fast as stupid.
2024 | Broadway |
MTC Original Broadway Production Broadway |
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