
Eureka Day
by Jonathan Spector
Directed by Benjamin Burdick
October 1-18, 2025
~95 mins, Drama
The Eureka Day School in Berkeley, California, is a bastion of progressive ideals: representation, acceptance, social justice. In weekly meetings, Eureka Day’s five board members develop and update policy to preserve this culture of inclusivity, reaching decisions only by consensus. But when a mumps outbreak threatens the Eureka community, facts become subjective and every solution divisive, leaving the school’s leadership to confront the central question of our time: How do you build consensus when no one can agree on truth?




Cast:
Joe Conley Golden* (Don)
Matthew Melton (Eli)
Marissa Price (Suzanne)
Hanna-Lee Sakakibara (Meiko)
Shana Tavares (Winter)
Alexis Ward (Carina)
Production and Design Team:
Benjamin Burdick (Director)
Jacob McGaughey (Assistant Director)
Elena Maddy (Stage Manager)
Nicholas Jules Hewitt (Scenic Designer / Technical Director)
Hayden Pedersen (Props Designer)
Cassie McCarty (Costume Designer)
Julien V. Elstob (Lighting Designer)
Drew Dalzell (Sound Designer)
Amandalynn Lovewell (Scenic Charge)
Matthew Wagner (Master Electrician)
Brayden Buckley (Sound Engineer / Sound Board Operator)
*Member of Actor’s Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
Did you catch Novid Parsi and Pantea Ommi on Idaho Today? Watch Mellisa Paul interview them on KTVB:
Reviews:
“I was left wondering, strangely for a critic: If everyone’s point of view is valid, is anyone’s?” -Jesse Green, The New York Times
“Reaches a peak of hilarity that would make Oscar Wilde envious. It’s that good. There wasn’t a soul in the theatre not convulsed with laughter… it is a shockingly beautiful piece of writing.” Lloyd Evans, The Spectator
“Never has a work so successfully integrated the effect of social media, in real time, on our un-virtual lives, as Jonathan Spector’s play.” – SF Weekly
“Talented playwright Jonathan Spector has achieved the almost impossible. He’s created an exceptional play that is laugh-out-loud funny, yet with an intelligent and introspective perspective… inventive, humorous and heartbreaking.” – Berkeleyside
“This is the play that would have kept us sane during lockdown” Clive Davis, The Times of London (****)
“Brilliantly funny and cleverly thought-provoking” Marianka Swain, London Theater (****)
About the Playwright
Novid Parsi (NOHV-eed PAHR-see, he/him) is a playwright whose recent work includes Remains and Returns, a winner of the Ashland New Plays Festival; and Through the Elevated Line, Jeff Award nominee for best new work. His plays have been produced or developed by Golden Thread Productions (San Francisco), The New Group (New York), Paines Plough (London), Playwrights Foundation (San Francisco), Queens Theatre (New York), Silk Road Rising (Chicago), and the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, among others. A two-time finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Novid also has been a finalist for Amphibian Stage’s SparkFest, Broad Horizons’ New Voices, New Plays, and the Woodward/Newman Award, and a semifinalist for the New American Voices Playwriting Festival and the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. A son of Iranian immigrants, Novid grew up in East Texas, earned degrees in literature from Swarthmore College and Duke University, and then lived in England and Chicago. Novid and his husband live in St. Louis.
“…my journalistic work and The Life You Gave Me …are both about retelling someone else’s story. As a journalist, you realize you have this incredible power to listen to someone talk about their life and work, and then translate that into a piece of writing that faithfully captures who they are and what they do. You also realize how much of the story depends on what you decide to put in or leave out. There is an ethical weight to every storytelling decision you make. It’s all very similar to The Life You Gave Me. In this play, the writer character tries to tell his mother’s story truthfully, but at the same time, his desire to satisfy his audience shapes the various versions of her story that he tells.” -Novid Parsi during an interview with Gustavo Nery Dutra Guedes for Illinois State University.
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Content and Stage Effects Advisory
BCT does not proactively offer advisories about subject matter, as sensitivities vary from person to person.
If you have any questions about content, age-appropriateness or stage effects (such as strobe lights or theatrical fog) that might have a bearing on patron comfort, please contact the box office at 208.331.9224 or boxoffice@bctheater.org.