By Savannah Whaley

Just as schools start back into session, Island City Stage goes to the head of the class as it presents Eureka Day by Jonathan Spector, the 2025 Tony Award® winner for Best Revival of a Play and what the New York Times called “a hilarious poison-pen satire of educational wokeism.” 

“It is an explosive finale to a season that has been an especially strong one in terms of storytelling,” said Andy Rogow, the artistic director of Island City Stage who will also direct the production. “I had been trying to obtain the license to produce Eureka Day for five years. When it finally became available due, in part, to the generosity of GableStage, I grabbed and scheduled it at the earliest possible date I could.” 

The comedy is set in the Eureka Day School in Berkeley, California that seems to have replaced the three “R’s” of reading, writing and arithmetic with three “P’s: parenting, progressiveness and privilege. It opens with a meeting of the school’s executive with its newest member, Carina. Lesbian, Black and co-parent of a special needs son, she is joining the board as they discuss updating the school’s inclusivity policies. They are soon thrown into a crisis as a mumps outbreak threatens students’ health and parents’ values. 

“I have always leaned into plays that feature LGBTQ+ characters in which their sexuality isn’t central to the play’s story,” Rogow said. “The lesbian character in Eureka Day is simply part of a larger community that wears its diversity and inclusion on its sleeve, but when faced with hard choices, the inclusivity of this community is profoundly tested.” 

In its review of the 2024 Broadway production, The New York Times reported, “Eureka Day asks us to consider that people speak and believe as they do for real reasons, and that even differing profoundly, they may achieve good things together… In short, we are asked to credit fully the humanity of those with whom we disagree.” 

“Its message could not be more pertinent for the LGBTQ+ community,” Rogow stressed. “Though we proudly and loudly proclaim our inclusiveness, we are not always so welcoming when we are asked to sacrifice long-held beliefs, spaces or rituals.” 

That’s not to say the play proclaims its message from a soap box, more like a whoopie cushion. The Chicago Sun-Times declared it, “a clever, crafty and profoundly funny comedy” that is “exactly what we need now: a vehicle for laughing at our own society’s predicament.”

Eureka Day closes Island City Stage’s acclaimed 14th season that challenged the company’s resources and exceeded audience expectations.

“This past season has been an especially rewarding one as we have broken through self-imposed barriers to present works we weren’t sure that we could,” Rogow said. “The musical Ruthless required a change of scenery that hadn’t been possible for us before and The Little Foxes was the largest-cast play we have ever produced. Both of them were enormous hits, with mostly sold out performances. Many of our patrons felt that our production of Everything Beautiful Happens at Night was one of the most emotionally moving plays we have ever produced. Light Switch is centering on a gay, autistic young man as a romantic protagonist – another first for us.” 

The 2026-27 season begins in October and features: a signature camp revival with Who Killed Joan Crawford?; the nostalgic Broadway musical Grey Gardens; the world premiere of Pegged, a biting political satire; an off-Broadway study in murderous mayhem with Messy White Gays; and the classic, yet timely, The Lion in Winter. 

The company has come a long way and more than lived up to its promise as one of the area’s best since it was honored as the Silver Palm Award for Best New Theatre in 2012. 

“Most of the credit for our success must be given to the artists who generously share their talents with us,” Rogow praised. “[They are] amazing actors, directors, designers and crew members who are always challenging themselves to be the best they can be.”