Running Time: 1 hour and 40 minutes with no intermission.
A NEW YORK TIMES CRITIC'S PICK! "ONE OF THE BEST PLAYS OF THE SEASON!" - DEADLINE
Eureka Day
by Jonathan Spector
directed by Anna D. Shapiro
ON BROADWAY AT THE
SAMUEL J. FRIEDMAN THEATRE
2024-2025 Season
Wildly relevant and bitingly funny, Jonathan Spector’s play comes to MTC in an all-new production following an acclaimed London run. 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.
Eureka Day is produced by special arrangement with Sonia Friedman Productions, Wagner Johnson Productions, and Seaview.
Major support for Eureka Day is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation as part of The Sloan Initiative: Setting the Stage for Science and Technology.
Additional support is provided by The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation.
“A shiny, insightful and damn funny little gem. One of the BEST PLAYS OF THE SEASON.”
Deadline
“A COMIC POWDER KEG with a cast crackling with chemistry and sharp comic chops!”
The Daily Beast
“Thank God for comedies that are actually funny.”
Broadway News
“Gaspingly funny!”
New York Magazine
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Manhattan Theatre Club produces a wide range of theatre both on and off-Broadway. In a history spanning almost 50 years, they have won 30 Tony Awards, 7 Pulitzer Prizes, and developed into one of the country’s most acclaimed theatres.
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Student tickets are available at the box office on the day of the show when the box office opens. Tickets are $30 (including all fees), payable by cash or credit card, and are available to students with an ID from a degree or diploma granting institution. Tickets are subject to availability and are limited to two per valid ID. Note that students aged 35 or under may prefer to purchase their tickets through the 30 Under 35 program instead – see above.
Click here for a seating chart. The Friedman Theatre seats 650. Seating is on Orchestra, Premier Circle and Mezzanine levels—all seating accessible by elevator. For more information on accessibility, please click here.
This production includes one scene featuring projected text. Audio-descriptive devices are available for this sequence.
Please ask front-of-house staff for more information if you or your guest is blind or low vision.
Cast
Amber Gray
Carina
| AMBER GRAY has originated roles in numerous productions over the years including: Claudia in Sondheim’s final musical Here We Are; Persephone in Hadestown; Hélène in Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812; Laurey in Daniel Fish’s Oklahoma!; and Zoe in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ An Octoroon. Other theatre gems include Sam Gold’s Macbeth on Broadway and Taylor Mac’s A 24 Decade History of Popular Music. Gray is a company member of The TEAM and has codeveloped and performed in their Mission Drift, Primer for a Failed Superpower, and the upcoming Reconstruction. theteamplays.org. Gray can always be found with radical performance community Reverend Billy and The Stop Shopping Choir who just wrapped up Neil Young’s Love Earth Tour as the opener. revbilly.com. TV/Film: upcoming “Long Bright River,” Barry Jenkins’ “Underground Railroad,” Broadway cult favorites “Submissions Only” and “The Gilded Age,” Ben Stiller’s “Escape at Dannemora,” Alex Harvey’s Walden: Life in the Woods, Gabe Braden’s Where There’s Smoke, Mariama Diallo’s Master, Michael VQ’s Submission, and The Arens’ Heartworm. MFA: NYU. |
Jessica Hecht
Suzanne
JESSICA HECHT last appeared on Broadway in MTC’s production of Summer, 1976, receiving a Tony Award nomination for her performance. Her previous Broadway credits include The Price, Fiddler on the Roof, The Assembled Parties, Harvey, After the Fall, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Julius Caeser, and her Tony Award-nominated performance in A View from the Bridge. Off-Broadway, she has appeared in King Lear, Stage Kiss, Three Sisters, The Orchard, Letters from Max, and Admissions (Obie Award & Outer Critics Circle Award Nomination). Her recent television appearances include the Netflix series “Special,” for which she received an Emmy Award Nomination, and her roles on “Tokyo Vice,” “Super Pumped,” “The Sinner,” “The Loudest Voice,” “Dickinson,” “The Boys,” and “Succession.” She is also recognizable to television audiences from her roles in the beloved series “Friends” and “Breaking Bad.” Her film performances include A+, Anesthesia, J. Edgar, The Grey Zone, The Sitter, My Soul to Take, Dan in Real Life, Sideways, The Atlantic City Story, The Sunlit Night, Home, and the recently completed Eleanor the Great directed by Scarlett Johansson.
Bill Irwin
Don
BILL IRWIN is an actor, director, writer, and clown. His original works include The Regard of Flight; Largely New York; Fool Moon; Old Hats; and The Happiness Lecture. Broadway: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; The Goat; Waiting For Godot; The Iceman Cometh; Fool Moon; Largely New York; Bye Bye Birdie. Off-Broadway: The Regard of Flight; Endgame; Old Hats; On Beckett (an evening of passages from the writings of Samuel Beckett). Television: “The Dropout;” “Elmo’s World” (Mr. Noodle); “CSI;” “Legion;” “Law and Order SVU;” “New Amsterdam;” “Blue Bloods;” “Quarry.” Film: Rustin; Rachel Getting Married; The Grinch Who Stole Christmas; Spoiler Alert; Interstellar; Eight Men Out; Stepping Out; Silent Tongue. He gratefully acknowledges awards and fellowships that have allowed a life in the theatre.
Thomas Middleditch
Eli
THOMAS MIDDLEDITCH is best known for his starring role in Mike Judge’s critically acclaimed HBO series, “Silicon Valley.” Thomas’ performance garnered him a 2016 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, along with three Critics’ Choice nominations for Best Actor in a Comedy Series.
Thomas most recently starred opposite Annaleigh Ashford in the CBS comedy series, “B Positive,” executive produced by Chuck Lorre, and he currently voices the lead in the animated Hulu series, “Solar Opposites.”
Thomas starred in Netflix’s first ever improv special, “Middleditch and Schwartz,” based off of his nationally toured two-man improv show with Ben Schwartz.
Film credits include: Zombieland: Double Tap, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Tag, and The Wolf of Wall Street. Additional TV credits include: “The Good Fight,” “You’re the Worst,” and “Drunk History.”
Chelsea Yakura-Kurtz
Meiko
Chelsea Yakura-Kurtz is a bicoastal theater, film, and television actress. In Los Angeles, she has originated roles such as Kat in the Steinberg Award-winning How the Light Gets In and Sei Shonagon in Unrivaled. She also recently played Elena in Pasadena Playhouse’s Uncle Vanya as part of their Tony-Award winning season. TV work includes Swarm (Amazon Prime), The Resident (CBS), The Flash (CW), Law & Order: SVU (NBC), Scandal (ABC), Longmire (Netflix), Station 19 (ABC) and Magnum PI (CBS). Recent film work includes Netflix’s Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, directed by John Lee Hancock. BFA: Boston University. This is her Broadway debut.
Amber Gray
Carina
Jessica Hecht
Suzanne
Bill Irwin
Don
Thomas Middleditch
Eli
Chelsea Yakura-Kurtz
Meiko
Creative
Jonathan Spector
Playwright
Jonathan Spector is a Playwright based in Oakland, California, making his Broadway debut. His plays include: Eureka Day (Glickman Award, Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Award, Rella Lossy Award, Theater Bay Area Award, WhatsOnStage Award nomination), This Much I Know (Glickman Award, Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Award, Edgerton Award), Best Available, Good. Better. Best. Bested., and In From The Cold. His work has been produced across the country and abroad a theaters including The Old Vic, Hampstead Theater, Aurora Theater, Colt Coeur, Asolo Rep, Syracuse Stage, Mosaic Theater, Theater J, InterAct, the State Theater of South Australia and Burgtheater. Jonathan has been a Playwrights Center Core Writer, TheatreWorks Core Writer, MacDowell Fellow, SPACE at Ryder Farm Resident, and Playwrights Foundation Resident Playwright. He has developed work with Ashland New Play Festival, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, JAW Festival, New Harmony Project, and PlayPenn, among others. Commissions include Roundabout Theater Company, La Jolla Playhouse, Manhattan Theater Club, South Coast Rep and Miami New Drama. Jonathan is a graduate of the much-besieged New College of Florida.
Anna D. Shapiro
Director
Anna D. Shapiro is a Tony Award-winning director and served as Artistic Director of Steppenwolf Theatre Company from 2014 to 2021, where she remains an ensemble member. She joined the Steppenwolf ensemble in 2005 and was awarded the 2008 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for August: Osage County (Steppenwolf, Broadway, London). She was nominated in 2011 in the same category for The Motherf**ker with the Hat (Public Theater, Labyrinth Theater). Other Steppenwolf directing credits include the world premiere production of The Minutes (also on Broadway); Mary Page Marlowe, Visiting Edna, Three Sisters, A Parallelogram, Up, The Crucible, The Unmentionables (also at Yale Repertory Theatre), The Pain and the Itch (also in New York), I Never Sang for My Father, Man from Nebraska, Purple Heart (also in Galway, Ireland), The Drawer Boy, Side Man (also in Ireland, Australia and Vail, Colorado), Three Days of Rain, The Infidel and This Is Our Youth (which transferred to Broadway). Additional Broadway credits include Of Mice and Men (with James Franco) and Fish in the Dark (with Larry David), and Off Broadway Domesticated (Lincoln Center Theater). Shapiro is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and Columbia. She is a professor in Northwestern University’s Department of Theatre.
Todd Rosenthal
Scenic Design
Broadway: August Osage County (Tony, Olivier), The Motherfucker With the Hat (Tony, Outer Critics Circle nom.), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Of Mice and Men,This Is Our Youth, Straight White Men, Linda Vista and Purpose. International: August Osage County (London, Australia); Beauty Queen of Leenane and Madama Butterfly (Ireland); Nice Fish and Downstate (London). Regional: Steppenwolf (37 productions), Goodman (artistic partner), Guthrie and many others. Awards: Distinguished Achievement Award (USITT), Helen Hayes, Ovation, Bay Area Theater Critics, Joseph Jefferson and the Michael Merritt. Professor, Northwestern University. Graduate, Yale Drama.
Clint Ramos
Costume Design
Clint Ramos is a Tony Award-winning designer and producer. Tony-nominated Broadway credits
include KPOP, Slave Play, The Rose Tattoo, Eclipsed, Once on This Island and Torch Song. Recent/current: Here Lies Love (also producer), Maybe Happy Ending and Malcolm X at the Met Opera. Film credits include Lingua Franca for Netflix and Respect for MGM. Producing creative director at NYCC Encores! and visual director at Lincoln Center. He was born and raised in
Cebu, the Philippines.
Jen Schriever
Lighting Design
Previously at the Friedman: Lackawanna Blues. Broadway: Mother Play, A Strange Loop (Tony nom.), Death of a Salesman (Tony nom.), 1776, Birthday Candles, What the Constitution Means to Me, The Lifespan of a Fact, Eclipsed, Ghetto Klown. MTC Stage I: In the Body of the World, Dan Cody’s Yacht. Opera: A Thousand Splendid Suns (world premiere, Seattle Opera); Die Fledermaus, The Pearl Fishers (Metropolitan); Faust, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; La Traviata
(Mariinsky, Russia); and The Pearl Fishers (ENO). Obie Award for sustained excellence in design. Adjunct professor, Purchase College. Mom: Henry. jenschriever.com.
Rob Milburn & Michael Bodeen
Original Music & Sound Design
Broadway credits include music composition and sound for No Man’s Land and Waiting for Godot, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Miracle Worker, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Speed of Darkness; and sound for Sweat, The Price, Larry David’s Fish in the Dark, This Is Our Youth, Of Mice and Men, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Superior Donuts, reasons to be pretty, A Year With Frog and Toad, The Song of Jacob Zulu and The Grapes of Wrath. Also Off-Broadway, many resident theatres and several international venues.
David Bengali
Projection Design
Broadway: Water for Elephants (Tony and Outer Critics noms.), The Thanksgiving Play, 1776. Off-Broadway and regional: We Live in Cairo (A.R.T., New York Theatre Workshop), Here There Are Blueberries (Tectonic Theatre Project, NYTW, La Jolla Playhouse, Signature D.C.; Hewes and Helen Hayes Awards), Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 (Signature, A.R.T.; Hewes Award, Drama Desk nom.), Without You (New World Stages), Monsoon Wedding (Saint Ann’s), The Visitor (The Public; Lortel nom.), Walk on Through (MCC), Circle Jerk (Fake Friends; Obie Award). National tours: Peter Pan, 1776, Rockin Road to Dublin.
Ann C. James
Intimacy & Sensitivity Coordinator
Special Citation Obie Award 2024. Broadway: Pass Over, Hamilton worldwide, Lempicka, The Outsiders, Parade, Sweeney Todd, The Heart of Rock and Roll, Illinoise, Sunset Blvd., Eureka Day. Off-Broadway: Velour! A Drag Spectacular!, Jonah, How to Defend Yourself, The Comeuppance, Here There Are Blueberries, Life and Trust, Table 17, The Lonely Few.
Gigi Buffington
Vocal Coach
Broadway: Cult of Love, Romeo + Juliet, Stereophonic (Best Play), The Outsiders (Best Musical), JOB, Mother Play, Prayer for the French Republic, Grey House, Between Riverside and Crazy, Cost of Living, Slave Play (remount), Clyde’s, Pass Over, The Minutes, Linda Vista, Straight White Men. Selected Off-Broadway: King James, Downstate, Heroes of the Fourth Turning, Corsicana, Evanston Salt Costs Climbing, On Sugarland. Eight seasons at Steppenwolf, one season at Royal Shakespeare Company. Arts Professor, Tisch, NYU. Upcoming: Good Night, and Good Luck; John Proctor Is the Villain.
Caparelliotis Casting & Kelly Gillespie
Casting
Select MTC: Mary Jane; Ja Ja’s African Hair Braiding; Cost of Living; Summer, 1976; Skeleton Crew; Ink. Select Broadway/Off Broadway: Good Night, and Good Luck with George Clooney (upcoming); Grangeville with Brendan Fraser (upcoming); The Comeuppance; The Boys in the Band. Select theatres: Signature NYC, The Old Globe season casting, Arena Stage, Berkeley Rep, Donmar Warehouse (consulting CD.) Select TV/film: current feature High Tide, five seasons of NBC’s “New Amsterdam,” The Boys in the Band (Netflix, original casting).
Kevin Bertolacci
Production Stage Manager
Broadway: The Nap (MTC); Fun Home; Ain’t No Mo’; West Side Story; King Lear; Macbeth; Rocky; Scandalous; A Free Man of Color; Curtains; Caroline, or Change; The Woman in White; Come Fly Away; Julius Caesar; Tartuffe. Off-Broadway: The Public Theater, Roundabout, Manhattan Theatre Club, MCC, Playwrights Horizons and Atlantic Theater Company.
Denise Cardarelli
Stage Manager
Broadway debut. Selected Off-Broadway: Brooklyn Laundry, The Perplexed, Long Lost, The Cake and Dan Cody’s Yacht (Manhattan Theatre Club); The Welkin (Atlantic Theater Company); Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (Lucille Lortel Theatre); The Refuge Plays (Roundabout Theatre Company); The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Red Bull/Fiasco Theaters); and New Golden Age (Primary Stages). Other New York: Lincoln Center Education, HERE Arts Center and LAByrinth Theater Company. Selected regional: Hartford Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, Two River Theater, The Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Centerstage (Baltimore), Olney Theatre Center and The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey.
Jonathan Spector
Playwright
Anna D. Shapiro
Director
Todd Rosenthal
Scenic Design
Clint Ramos
Costume Design
Jen Schriever
Lighting Design
Rob Milburn & Michael Bodeen
Original Music & Sound Design
David Bengali
Projection Design
Ann C. James
Intimacy & Sensitivity Coordinator
Gigi Buffington
Vocal Coach
Caparelliotis Casting & Kelly Gillespie
Casting
Kevin Bertolacci
Production Stage Manager
Denise Cardarelli
Stage Manager