Interview: Jennifer Dean of EUREKA DAY at 4th Wall Theatre Co.

Jennifer Dean, Artistic Director of 4th Wall Theatre Co., brings a keen eye for both timely storytelling and innovative theatrical craft to the company’s latest production, Eureka Day. The play delves into contemporary debates around community, public health, and personal choice—all framed with humor, heart, and sharp social commentary. In this conversation, Dean shares what drew her to the play, how she balances its comedic and serious elements, and the ways she and her design team bring the chaotic world of a private school grappling with hot-button issues to life on stage. She also reflects on the larger role of theater as a space for conversation, connection, and thoughtful reflection on some of the most pressing questions of our time.

Eureka Day takes on some very contemporary and challenging issues. What initially drew you to this play, and why did you feel it was right for 4th Wall’s stage?

I was first introduced to Eureka Day by several of our loyal patrons who saw it in New York and immediately started texting or emailing saying “4th Wall needs to do this play!” I read it and loved it. The dialogue is smart, it’s a really well written script, it is a play that presents issues that make you think and the characters are real people struggling to do their best in the given circumstances and it really lends itself to the sort of acting we really aim for at 4th Wall. It is normally done on a proscenium, so that has presented some challenges in staging that my design team has worked really hard to solve.

The play blends humor with very real and divisive social debates. How do you balance comedy and weighty subject matter in your direction?

I think laughter is actually a really vulnerable thing and it does something to our bodies and minds that allow us to receive information in a more open way. Jonathan Spector, the author, has done some really smart writing in how he weaves in the comedy and the weight of the circumstances. I think he does a fantastic job of not telling the audience what to think, in humanizing each of these people and allowing their point of views to be seen. As a director my job is just to be true to what he has created, he has put it all in there, the script is the map. It’s important for me to find the timing, to not lean into making moments funny or creating bits. The humor is in the truth. Jonathan says something in his notes along the line of, “This is not a satire. It is a drama with (hopefully) a lot of humor…. If you lean fully into the comedy and make everyone a caricature, you will find easy laughs but the audience won’t come with you for the second half of the play.” So it is my job to help walk that line. To find the humor of recognition and not the humor of mockery, to use his words.

What do you hope audiences will walk away thinking or feeling after seeing Eureka Day?

Gosh. I hope they feel a catharsis of laughter. I hope they are moved to really try and see the world through someone else's point of view, not even to change their mind but just to understand more. I hope they are challenged. 

How did you approach shaping the world of Eureka Day—a private school community grappling with questions of public health and personal choice?

In terms of shaping the literal world, there is so much that the script provides and then my design team did a knock out job of creating that world and space. Internally through the process, with the actors, we had lots of conversations during rehearsal trying to identify with that particular little pocket of California, working to understand each character's point of view and how they fit in the larger eco-system of the schools community that you never see. 

The play includes a famous scene that unfolds partly through projected social media comments. How did you approach staging and timing that moment to capture the chaos of online discourse?

This scene has been the most challenging. Working to make it accessible to everyone in the audience and also how it fits in the world while still allowing the actors to stay in the scene, as well as just the technical elements of it. We have actually had multiple conversations as a design team even into tech week about the best placement and timing. It really is about being flexible, communicating and repetition. You just have to do it, adjust and then run it again and again. And then, we will add the audience and see what that does to it!

Can you share how your design team helped you bring this play’s very specific environment to life?

We started back in May with our production meetings. Talking every few weeks about all the different elements, we all read the script several times and then highlight the elements that are necessary to the story and then figure out how to make it work in our space and the challenges of a thrust. We always start with the set and then build out. Mark A Lewis was our scenic designer, and he is so open to collaboration. He presented his first draft and we all started throwing ideas out on how to make it work even better; moving a window here, angling a door here, adding a light fixture, etc… Then you start to layer all the other elements and little by little comes to life. It’s been a fun one to see come together. Jack Jacobs lights, Michael Mullins sound and Nile Helgeruds costumes add that extra layer of personality and truth and life. I helped source the books that fill the shelves by soliciting donations from friends and partnering with a non-profit, Books Between Kids. It was so fun to look through the titles and then work with Mark and our props designer Frankie to add all the decor to the set. I even brought in a few of my old toys and stuffed animals to add.

As Artistic Director, how does Eureka Day fit into 4th Wall’s larger vision for storytelling and season planning?

We are launching our 15th Season, which is so exciting! 4th Wall has always, and will continue to present stories that are truthful and real. We look for really good scripts, sometimes that is new work, sometimes those are classics, but we always strive to tell stories that make our audiences think, show them a different point of view, open up conversations or just stretch our creative muscles of play. We want roles that will challenge our actors, give them opportunities to be authentic and make the audience feel like they are just peering into someone elses world, like a fly on the wall. We want to tell good stories, well. Finding that balance is a challenge, but it is really rewarding when you see the audiences get excited about what you are presenting.

The play deals with questions of community, inclusivity, and conflict—topics that feel very timely. How do you see theater as a space for audiences to wrestle with these ideas together?

These topics are so timely, more so every single day. Sometimes I see a headline and I think “How did Jonathan know!?” I believe we are more disconnected than ever, but in the conversations I have with people I also think we are way more alike than the media would want us to believe. We have to learn how to talk to each other again, to really see each other, even if it means we still don’t agree, but how can we love each other. The theater gives us a safe space for a couple hours to sit in a room with friends and strangers, all with a unique range of personal life experiences and view points, and see the same thing. To laugh at the same time, to hear each other hold back tears, to exhale together in a moment of surprise, to experience life together. I just wish for a whole lot more of that.

Do you have a favorite line or moment in this production that always makes you smile or think?

I don’t have a singular moment. There is so much in this play that I love, but what really makes me smile is when I see the actor react to something in a new and truthful way because of what the other actor did in that moment. It happened the other night in rehearsal. I was watching a scene and there was this very small moment and I saw a truthful reaction come over one of their faces and I felt exactly what they were feeling in the moment without them saying a word. It’s like a little bolt of electricity. I can’t wait to see more of that as we wrap up rehearsals and get into the run. Theater is living. It’s never exactly the same every single night, you show up to do the show after your day filled with who knows what, and the audience reacts in a different way every night, and I love that.

What’s the biggest takeaway you hope audiences carry with them?

I want them to walk away thinking and asking questions. I want them to see bits of themselves in the characters they saw and I want it to be something they continue to ponder. I don’t want it to end with the lights come up, I want it to be something they take with them and reflect upon.