“No one here is the Arbiter of Absolute Truth. But each of us does hold a truth.” —the school head Don in Eureka Day Eureka Day, the 2025 Tony Award Winner for Best Revival of a Play by multi-award-winning Jonathan Spector, arrives at Washington’s Theater J with a lens that critiques and satirizes reliance on consensus decision-making in a crisis. Specifically, Eureka Day addresses a mumps outbreak in a school without a mandatory vaccination policy. It is a play rich in big ideas, exploring the intersections between vaccination policy, privilege, progressive liberalism, and scientific certainty versus scientific uncertainty. But the boldest and most powerful idea is that without agreement on basic facts and what is true, society cannot function effectively. Eureka Day resonates because this once-reliable principle no longer holds sway in the U.S., yet this group of parents resists being misled or manipulated. And far too often, truth — and vaccine science with it — is treated as opinion. And watching the play unfold, you’re reminded of the cost of losing trust in vaccine science. Eureka Day resonates because we’re hungry for a world where science is trusted again.  When the play opens at the start of the 2018/19 term, The Eureka Day School executive committee welcomes Carina (Renee Elizabeth Wilson), a parent stepping into a position traditionally reserved for newcomers. Her fellow committee members — Don, Head of School (Eric Hissom), Eli (Jonathan Feuer), Meiko (Lilli Hokama), and Suzanne (Susan Rome) — round out this marvelous cast. Their discussion of a drop-down menu on the school’s website does more than introduce Carina: it reveals the committee’s dynamics and the culture of this Berkeley, California, elementary school, where reserving a committee seat for a new parent signals a deep commitment to inclusion and community, reflecting consensus decision-making.  Jonathan Feuer (Eli), Renee Wilson (Carina), Eric Hissom (Don), Lilli Hokama (Meiko), and Susan Rome (Suzanne) in ‘Eureka Day.’ Photo by Ryan Maxwell. I cannot compliment this cast enough. The script requires a tour de force of expressiveness and restraint, challenging the performers to navigate the tension between excess and control so that no one becomes a caricature, and unfinished lines clearly communicate missing words. They have gelled as a unit, demonstrating interlocking cohesion in which each one sharpens the other. Director Haley Finn has orchestrated this cohesion, guiding each performance into a unified whole. Spector’s depiction of the progressive private school milieu is spot on. He captures the mores (abhorrence of bigotry and intolerance), the practices (democratic community conversations), the lingo (“holding space” and “I feel heard”), the values (diversity, equity, and inclusion), the curriculum (strong social justice component), and an all-consuming intentional earnestness to create a climate that celebrates and sparks learning, one where “We do not turn our children into villains.”  But will they turn one another into villains when a student catches the mumps, leading to an outbreak that triggers a health department vaccination recommendation and quarantine order?  Over the course of five scenes, the executive committee talks, argues, interrupts, debates, talks some more — repeatedly referencing consensus, and whether they have it or not. The word actually becomes ironic, having started out as a worthy progressive ideal and then transforming into a procedural obstacle. As opinions and alliances are created and broken, we see that the word loses meaning altogether because no one seems to have the same idea of what it is or how to reach it.  In this way, Spector illustrates how the liberal facade of community and consensus breaks down in a crisis. More to the point, Eureka Day illustrates how easily principle gives way to self-interest. For example, Suzanne argues that one family can’t decide vaccination policy for the whole community, even as she tries to define the standard based on what’s right for her own. Her masquerade of language is simply hypocrisy embedded in a claim of consensus. Rome as Suzanne is nothing short of sensational, deftly revealing nuance within an unyielding character. Lilli Hokama (Meiko), Renee Wilson (Carina), Jonathan Feuer (Eli), Susan Rome (Suzanne), and Eric Hissom (Don) in ‘Eureka Day.’ Photo by Ryan Maxwell. The third scene depicting the community meeting powerfully and vividly illustrates the contradictions at the heart of consensus. At this virtual Community Activated Conversation, Don speaks facing the screen with the committee seated behind him. The parents chime in via chat responding to him and one another. It starts out benign enough. But being in a Zoom chat loosens people’s inhibitions and some people feel like they can be as rude as they want. So what happens next is as predictable as a saloon fight in a western: polite conversation falls to the wayside and the comments turn offensive, vulgar, and nasty. Once trolling and name calling begins, it only escalates, turning the chat into a digital Roman Coliseum. This is when consensus dies. This meeting proves to be a technical and emotional highlight of the play, as the comments are projected on a wall behind for audience viewing, prompting more laughter than I’ve heard before at Theater J. It’s impossible to resist the temptation to highlight a few of the comments here. “Typical behavior from the Executive Committee of FACISM.” “You want to play Russian roulette with your kids, go for it. But when you bring Little Miss Typhoid Mary to school, you put all our children at risk.” “The only POISON is what’s coming out of your trash mouth.”  Don’t worry about these three chat posts being spoilers. There are more than a hundred of them, and between laughing, watching, and listening to Don and committee members (and blinking and catching your breath), you are bound to miss one or two comments anyway. Trust me, an abundance of zingers awaits you. Moreover, those will not be your first laughs. Eureka Day is full of humor from start to finish, with laughs of recognition, laughs from the dialogue, and laughs born of irony. That humor, in turn, lays bare how each character navigates conflict in their own way. Bringing that scene to life requires every element working in sync. Projections must fire on cue from dialogue or actor gesture, lights must calibrate for the visual text scrolling on the surface of a screen or prop, sound must account for the volume of dialogue competing with audience laughter, scenery must frame it all, and the director has to focus on the whole of the collaborative choreography of the overall timing that makes the scene work. Kudos to these Eureka Day pros for a seamless experience: lighting designer Colin K.  Bills, sound designer Sarah O’Halloran, and projections designer Kelly Colburn. Undoubtedly, the standing ovation on opening night reflected the audience’s delight in that entertaining and incisive scene. Scenic designer Misha Kachman and team are to be applauded for a spectacular set that showcases the school library. The room is painted in vibrant primary colors and has details that scream private-school affluence. Kids can play with a plush stuffed goat or pick books from multiple shelves. The room celebrates the whole child — a space for curiosity, exploration, and unbridled imagination. Art supplies spill from a cubby in organized chaos, books line miniature shelves in rainbow order, and tactile toys invite both play and discovery. Yet despite the riot of color and activity, there’s a sense of refinement, a deliberate balance between joyful abandon, cultivated taste, and intentionality. The walls are plastered with affirming messages, such as “All are welcome here.” A beanbag nestles in a secluded spot that is dubbed The Calmer Corner, and at one point, a character retreats to it seeking refuge from an unfortunate assumption about another committee member. In the midst of this, the executive committee talks, argues, interrupts, debates, and talks some more, spinning in place over whether to institute a mandatory vaccination policy by consensus, every word ricocheting off the riotous energy of the calm and ordered set around them.  Eureka Day is rigorously written, beautifully acted, and brought to life with remarkable clarity. Never has a production felt more timely, coming at a precarious moment when the administration’s unserious vaccine czar is recklessly and dangerously discounting decades of scientifically sound vaccine protocols that have protected millions of Americans, tossing them aside like wilted lettuce. How will parents and school systems navigate it all? How will we all navigate a society of so many separate realities? I suppose that even when those separate realities cause fracture, hope lives in the quiet faith that we will keep trying to talk to each other.  Running Time: One hour and 45 minutes with no intermission. Eureka Day plays through April 5, 2026, presented by Theater J at the Aaron Cecile Goldman Theater Trish Vradenburg Stage in the Edlavitch DCJCC, 1529 16th Street NW, Washington, DC. Tickets are $69.99 with a $10 discount for DCJCC members. For tickets, call the box office at 202-777-3210, or purchase online.  The program is online here. Eureka DayBy Jonathan SpectorDirected by Artistic Director Hayley Finn CASTJonathan Feuer as EliEric Hissom as DonLilli Hokama as MeikoJulia Klavans as Winter/Suzanne understudySusan Rome as SuzanneRenee Elizabeth Wilson as Carina  CREATIVE TEAMScenic Designer: Misha KachmanLighting Designer: Colin K. BillsCostume Designer: Jeanette ChristensenSound Designer: Sarah O’HalloranProjections Designer: Kelly ColburnIntimacy Coordinator: Lorraine Resseger-SloneProperties Designer: Aofie CreightonProduction Stage Manager: Leigh RobinetteAssistant Stage Managers: Logan Fillizola, Miranda Korieth, Brian Martinez SEE ALSO:Theater J announces cast and creative team for ‘Eureka Day’  (news story, February 24, 2026) ...read more read less