The Cast Photo by Claudia Hershner

It's the opening of Jonathan Spector's Eureka Day, the 2025 Tony Award-winning play currently onstage at the intimate Falcon Theatre in Newport, Kentucky. The committee's conversation is full of "woke" statements that belie numerous microaggressions that fester just beneath the surface. They set aside the controversial term, deeming it not an ethnicity.

The next issue to come before them a few days later in an emergency meeting is not so readily resolved: An outbreak of mumps and a health department order for an immediate school closure until all children have been vaccinated. With that news, these adamantly inclusive people realize they are facing a controversial crisis regarding childhood vaccinations, a divisive issue for them as well as the community at large.

The characters are a representative cross-section of progressive liberal thinkers. Don (Rick Grant), the seriously fair-minded head of school, is an aging hippie who's into meditation retreats and poetry by Rumi, the mystic Sufi poet. Suzanne (Bekka Eaton), 50ish, is white and a part-time life coach. Her five children all attended Eureka Day, and she is all about modeling tolerant and accepting behaviors until they don't fit with her personal beliefs.

Eli (David Derringer) is a thirtysomething white guy who made a fortune in the tech industry. He cashed out early and hasn't figured out what's next, but he's a constant talker. He and his wife have been generous financial supporters of the school. Meiko (Julia Sonia Locker), biracial and in her mid-30s, is a Berkeley native and a single mother. She persistently knits during the committee's meetings. Eli's open marriage has led to Meiko and Eli being involved. Finally, Carina (Kyndra Dyanne Jefferies), a professional Black woman in her early 40s, recently moved to Berkeley from the East Coast with her lesbian partner and their son. The school annually enlists the parent of a new student to join the executive committee: Carina has thoughts and questions, but she's initially hesitant to share them with her well-intended colleagues.

To get beyond the disagreements voiced within the committee, Don arranges for a "Community Activated Conversation," an online townhall-style meeting. As he settles in to watch the livestream, he is backed by the other committee member still voicing their personal thoughts. But Don quickly loses control of the online gathering, with furious responses flying by on a screen for the audience to read. Across a hilarious 10-minute segment that concludes the first act, 144 increasingly virulent and obscene messages are posted from various parents, revealing that the community is decidedly not pervasively warm and fuzzy, but more likely a hotbed of raging intolerance.

This is surely one of the most hilarious theatre scenes in recent memory. It begins with calm greetings and statements, but wildly off-topic but indignant messaging almost immediately swamps the dialogue with uninhibited remarks and polarized opinions. One respondent repeatedly posts a thumbs-up emoji at less and less appropriate moments. The scene evokes such uncontrolled laughter and reactions from audience members that the actors' lines (which in fact cue the postings) become lost in the cacophony.

No matter–the playwright simply wanted to demonstrate how people communicate (or fail to) in today's shoot-from-the-hip world. The committee's banal remarks continue, but understanding what they're trying to say is unnecessary. As the online verbal combat gains momentum, Grant's horrified facial expressions make Don a surrogate for the audience until he finally terminates the belligerent fireworks. "I am feeling like this format," he explains, "is not facilitating us all bringing our best selves to this conversation."

Following the intermission, the heat is turned down as the committee members struggle to pick up the pieces. Some apologies are offered, but it's evident that rough edges have not been smoothed and consensus is a long way off. As Suzanne, Eaton sheds her calm, controlled demeanor for a heartrending monologue about a tragedy that shaped her personal opinions about vaccinations in a way that's obviously the cause for her thoughts about the present situation. As Carina, listening to Suzanne's story, Jefferies offers the closest to a voice of compassionate reason, even though she remains staunch in her beliefs. Perhaps agreeing to disagree is the only viable path forward.

The production's able director, Ed Cohen, has staged this play with the kind of balance and finesse necessary between the comedy and drama and the progressive and the conservative views that playwright Spector has written to both entertain and provoke. Of course, these five characters are to some extent caricatures, and in interviews, Spector has explained that he wrote this play for a Berkeley audience, so the characters represent familiar local types. Nevertheless, Spector gives each one humanity as the story unfolds, and that's how this surprising play has connected with audiences from coast to coast–and even locally in Northern Kentucky.

Eureka Day runs through September 26, 2026, at Falcon Theatre, 636 Monmouth Street, Newport KY. For tickets and information, please visit falcontheater.net or call 513-476-6783.