Review: EUREKA DAY is a Tempest in a Vaccination Teapot

A mumps outbreak at a private day school, anti-vaccine activism, and veiled racism are serious subjects for sure.

But in playwright Jonathan Spector’s “Eureka Day” – now being given a cleverly funny production by The Huntington at the Huntington Theatre through June 28 – they are also comic fodder for a trenchant story about a tempest over vaccination in a hyper-woke teacup.

First produced at Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley, California, in pre-pandemic 2018, before moving off-Broadway the following year, Manhattan Theatre Club subsequently presented the play at Broadway’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in a production that won the 2025 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play.

The story focuses on a small group of activist parents and the even-keeled principal at the exclusive Eureka Day School in Monterey, California, as they walk on tenterhooks around each other while seeking unanimity. These are the kinds of people who want snacks made only of locally sourced ingredients and who debate the use of paper plates for said snacks even when they are biodegradable.

As played here by the always interesting Ken Cheeseman, Don, the principal, who often opens the meeting with passages by 18th-century mystic poet Rumi, whom he delights in quoting. The class-conscious Suzanne (Nancy Lemenager) is older than the other parents and jokes that she and her husband had six children, far apart in age, so that Suzanne could continue her involvement with the school. Late in the play, Suzanne sets the humor aside, however, to make a jarring revelation that stills the action by providing the story with perhaps its most sobering moment.

Eli (Japhet Balaban) achieved enormous wealth as one of the first employees at a Silicon Valley behemoth and is now a stay-at-home dad in an open marriage with too much free time on his wandering hands. Those hands find their way to Meiko (Sasha Diamond), his mistress and a single mother who knits during the meetings and unwittingly finds herself at the center of the debate.

The newest council member, and only black member, is Carina (Eunice Woods), a calm and collected businesswoman whose child is new to Eureka Day and who navigates the fraught meetings with impressive comportment and dignity.

Under the layered direction of Margot Bordelon, the ensemble is as good as it gets in bringing Spector’s characters to life and the humor in his writing to full bloom. The pro-vaxxers have the better of the argument through most of the show but Spector gives the anti-vaxx side its moment as well in this story of a school year of council meetings where consensus is the mandate but class distinctions, subtle acts of exclusion stemming from discussions of whether students are full-pay or on financial aid, and various other forms of prejudice permeate the air.

While there is a lot to think about in the play – especially because it is now being seen through the prism of the dangers to public health posed by the current presidential administration and its dubious Secretary of Health and Human Services – there is a lot to laugh about, too.

In one of the production’s funniest scenes, the council invites parents to participate in a live-streamed Zoom meeting. As the principal and the members gather around a laptop, the chat – scrolling on a large rear screen created by projection designer John Horzen and UptownWorks – soon fills with insults, falsehoods, irrelevancies, misunderstandings, and misinformation. Increasingly inane emojis only heighten the humor that, at a recent performance, had the audience convulsing in laughter.

The production has an authentic feel, too, thanks to scenic designer Luciana Stecconi's realistic elementary school classroom. Also enhancing the proceedings are Zoe Sundra's character-specific costumes - includng Suzanne's Ann Taylor-inspired attire, Don's rumpled shirt and timeworn trousers, and Carina's stylish pants ensembles.

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