“Eureka Day” at the Pasadena Playhouse – reviewed

Jonathan Spector’s 2025 Tony Award-winning satire is a study in cringe, generating big laughs and nervous squirms in almost equal measures. When a mumps outbreak hits a progressive private primary school in Berkeley, the school’s elected well-meaning Board of Directors quintet descends into chaos trying to craft a perfectly all-encompassing vaccination policy.  Cue a whole lot of bending-over-backwards and elaborate contortions in trying to maintain their all-inclusive attitudes towards school policies. Cue the well-meaning quorum butting heads with each other as well as clashing with the vocal anti-vaxxer vs. pro-vaccination parents.

The Eureka Day private school in Berkeley California is portrayed as an upscale learning facility that considers itself politically “woke.” Typical dialogue sees the mostly white characters waffling about, choosing their words carefully and desperately trying not to appear offensive. Case in point: “our Core Operating Principle here is that everyone should Feel Seen by this community,” to which Suzanne pointedly replies, “There’s no benefit in Feeling Seen if you’re simultaneously Being Othered, right?”  Right.

The play’s focus remain on these five core PTA members (and parents) as they meet to discuss what action the school needs to take in the light of some children having contracted the mumps virus. Interacting more directly with the parents of the student body is handled beautifully in a scene that displays comments while they all attend the meeting virtually via a chat room / zoom meeting.  Watching the various parents take potshots at one another provides a lot of laughs as the assembled PTA team flounder and fail to control the livestream meeting.

Directed by Teddy Bergman’s direction is sharp and focused, eliciting solid performances from everyone. The actors give uniformly good and credible performances, eliciting plenty of laughs with some well-timed delivery and reactions.

Short and sweet, the one-act (no intermission) one hour forty-minute comedy doesn’t offer any easy resolutions. Rather, it concludes very cleverly with an astonishing and impactfully satisfying punchline.

Eureka Day

Written by Jonathan Spector

Directed by Teddy Bergman

Runs through Sunday, October 5, 2025

At the Pasadena Playhouse

39 South El Molino Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101

Tickets:   

Online – PasadenaPlayhouse.org

By phone – 626-356-7529

In person – Pasadena Playhouse Box Office, located at 39 South El Molino Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101

Performance Schedule: 

Wednesday and Friday evenings at 8:00 PM;

Thursdays at 7:00 PM; Tuesday Sep 30 at 8:00 PM;

Saturdays at 2:00 PM and 8:00 PM;

Sundays at 2:00 PM and Sunday Oct 5 at 7:00 PM

Running time: 1 hour and 40 minutes, no intermission.