GableStage closed out its 2025 season on a high note with Eureka Day, a rip-roaring satire centered around vaccines, identity politics, groupthink, and the absurd contradictions of modern liberalism.
Fresh off its Broadway run, where it won the Tony Award for Best Rival of a Play last year at Manhattan Theatre Club, GableStage becomes the first company to secure the rights and produce the play following its Broadway debut. That alone is a major get for South Florida theater.
See this play. Bring your brain and pay attention.
Buckle up and enjoy the ride.
Eureka Day is sharp, funny, uncomfortable, self-aware, and painfully relevant.
Most of all, it is entertaining.
The third scene alone is worth the ticket price. As a mumps outbreak shuts down the school, the cast conducts a live-stream community meeting that descends into absolute madness.
Eureka Day was written in 2017, years before COVID shut down the world and vaccines became one of the most divisive social topics of the modern era.
Some audience members may not see it as a comedy. Certain scenes drift into drama, satire, and outright social horror. But to borrow a phrase from the play itself, it is hard to reach consensus.
Still, most theatergoers will likely experience Eureka Day as a comedy.
The plot centers around the board members of Eureka Day, a progressive private school in Berkeley, California, meeting to discuss the upcoming school year.
Stellar Performances in Eureka Day
Mark H. Dold (last seen in Appropriate and The Lehman Trilogy) delivers a nuanced and physically expressive performance as Don, the aging white liberal attempting to keep the entire operation from imploding. Eight-time Carbonell winner Jenny Hacker brings charm, vulnerability, and conviction to Suzanne, an older parent (her kid is in grad school) whose anti-vaccine beliefs become central to the conflict.
Ryan Didato plays Eli with ironic self-awareness and calibrated Silicon Valley smugness. Jordyn Moone delivers intense frustration as Meiko. Rita Cole brings restrained balance as Karina, the new member of the board and often the audience’s grounding force.
These five identities in one room creates inevitable friction. The play becomes a social pentagram of clashing ideologies, egos, and insecurities, masked in woke inclusiveness.
And nobody emerges clean. There is no hero. Everyone is flawed and becomes ridiculous. Suzanne perhaps is the most humanized character once the audience learns why she distrusts vaccines, but that emotional reveal doesn’t simplify our feelings towards her.
Eureka Day at GableStage
Visually, the production is first class.
The scenic design, lighting, and transitions are handled with precision.
Director Stuart Meltzer deserves enormous credit here. One of South Florida theater’s most important creative voices, Meltzer once again demonstrates why his work continues to resonate.
What also feels exciting is the larger sense of momentum and connective tissue happening within Miami theater. Jonathan Spector, the Oakland-based playwright behind Eureka Day, had his play Birthright world premier last year at Miami New Drama. That production is now heading Off-Broadway this summer. Meanwhile, Meltzer’s Zoetic Stage continues producing ambitious and intelligent work at the Arsht Center.
Seeing Miami companies support bold work, support each other, secure major productions, develop world premieres, and collectively elevate the region feels genuinely encouraging.
South Florida theater is getting stronger.
Allow for a slight correction and a jab at neighboring counties: Miami theater is getting stronger!
Support it and go see Eureka Day.
For more info and tickets click here.
