Aurora Adachi-Winter

Consensus is easy-until it isn’t.

That fragile idea sits at the center of Eureka Day, Jonathan Spector's sharply incisive, Tony Award winning satire that skewers progressive ideals, parenting politics, and the fault lines that appear when belief collides with fear. Set at an ultra-progressive Berkeley elementary school where every decision is meant to be made collectively, the play erupts into chaos when a mumps outbreak forces parents and board members to confront vaccines, misinformation, and the limits of inclusiveness itself.

Now making its Chicago premiere in a limited six-week engagement from January 13 through February 22 at Broadway in Chicago's Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place, TimeLine Theatre Company's production, directed by Lili-Anne Brown, brings this "gaspingly funny" and uncomfortably timely play to Broadway In Chicago audiences. We spoke with Aurora Adachi-Winter, who plays Meiko, a perceptive parent navigating both personal uncertainty and communal pressure, about empathy, representation, and why Eureka Day continues to spark debate long after the curtain falls.

MI: (Matt Inawat, GoPride) Tell us a little bit about Eureka Day and your role.

AAW: (Aurora Adachi-Winter) Eureka Day is a play by Jonathan Spector, and it takes place at this private elementary school in Berkeley. It follows what is essentially kind of the board, like the executive board, which is compiled of some parents from the school and then the head of the school as well. They navigate very quickly a mumps outbreak in a place where some of the families vaccinate and some of the families do not vaccinate. So that is a bit about just the overall plot. I do not want to go too much further, because then I will just be giving things away.

MI: And it is super, super timely, you know, just following COVID as well. So tell us a little bit about your role.

AAW: I play Meiko. She is specifically written as half Japanese, which I am as well, and she is a Berkeley native. She is also exploring polyamory, and I think it is probably her first time exploring polyamory. There is a lot that is left up to us. Jonathan Spector has really written this incredible script that is so full and wild, but also lets you fill in a lot of the blanks for your characters, which I really appreciate, but she is dabbling into the world of polyamory.

MI: So Meiko exists in a community that prides itself on inclusiveness, yet fractures under pressure. How do you approach playing someone caught in that contradiction?

AAW: The script is so strong, and Meiko is definitely listening a lot. She specifically starts off in a place where she feels very secure about her decision, and then over the course of the play, it is one of those situations where when something hits close to home, it kind of makes you rethink. So that is where she is. She definitely feels pulled and unsure and obviously wants to do what is best for her child and for the school, and it can be difficult to balance all of those, especially when it comes to something so personal as the health of your child.

MI: This play dives headfirst into uncomfortable conversations that many of us are still actively having. What initially drew you to the play and to Meiko's character?

AAW: When I first read this play a number of years ago, and at first I was like, gosh, do people really want to go to the theater and talk about vaccines and herd immunity? Have we not just been living that over and over and over again? But I feel that what you are seeing in a number of states right now, and across the country now with our administration, is these rollbacks on vaccinations and encouraging people to get vaccinated and requiring people to be vaccinated. This conversation is just one that we do need to be having right now. What I love is that the play is a satire, it is a comedy. It is absolutely hysterical. But it is really touching on these very difficult conversations that, especially for Meiko, she just feels so completely torn and a little confused and just kind of tearing at the seams.

MI: Eureka Day uses sharp-witted humor to explore some of these serious topics. How do you and the cast balance that comedy with the emotional and political weight?

Members of the cast of Eureka Day; credit: Eureka Day

AAW: Lili-Anne Brown, our director, and TimeLine have done such a wonderful job of creating a room of people who, the moment we all got together and we first read the script, I kind of realized that this was going to be a really wonderful time because we are all playing people who I think audiences are really going to see themselves in. So many of these characters, and stepping into that world, you have to be able to trust the people around you, and that has been there since day one. Every single one of the people that I am on stage with and those behind the table are just so supportive and encouraging. We have had very difficult conversations in the room.

People have told very personal stories, and I think it has brought an incredible amount of weight and honesty to our performances and to the show, while also recognizing that we are all artists, we all love to play and pretend and have a great time, and we want to do that on stage. I think we are all just so fortunate and grateful to have one another and know that we can really go out there and maybe even make some mistakes, but that everyone is going to be holding one another at the end of the day.

MI: Meiko may not be the loudest voice in the room, but she is often one of the most perceptive. What do you think she sees that others miss?

AAW: She does pick up on the way that things are phrased, which is a skill that Jonathan Spector really has in this script. The wording of things is so specific. I will say memorizing the script has been one of the most difficult things, I think, for a lot of us. But she is sitting there listening very hard most of the time. Sometimes she is trying to escape into her own mind as well, but she is very perceptive. What is interesting is, as the Asian character in this play, we are very often looked at as the model minority, right? That is what you hear. I think Meiko fits into that, and then she also breaks out of it very, not strategically, but she definitely breaks out of it. I think you do see her in that kind of model minority area, and then she is shoved out of it and has to take control of her own narrative.

MI: This show has won some major awards, including the Tony for Best Revival. Does that legacy add pressure or freedom?

AAW: I do not think it adds a lot of pressure. Chicago does theater so well. Chicago brings so much honesty and depth and weight, while also, again, as I said, having fun. It is really wonderful to be given a script and a play that has such a great legacy behind it and take it and say, OK, and now we are going to do it the Chicago way.

MI: As a Chicago native, what does it mean to return to the city in such a high profile, conversation-sparking production?

AAW: Oh gosh, it feels so good. Especially where Broadway Playhouse is, I grew up going to that theater and I went to high school just a couple of blocks away, and so this area really feels like my backyard. I can step out onto the street and I know exactly where I am and I know exactly where the train is going to be. So it feels very much like a welcome home, and I am so thankful for that. To be able to come back and do this particular play makes me feel really happy for 10-year-old Aurora, because I think she would just feel, I do not think 10-year-old Aurora could imagine seeing a production that I am a part of promoted everywhere all over the city. It is a little weird and silly sometimes to be like, oh, there are our faces, and they are so huge. So it is a little bit like a dream come true in ways.

MI: Were there any moments during rehearsal that surprised you emotionally or intellectually?

AAW: Yeah. I do not want to share stories that are not mine to share, but I mentioned that we did have some really personal conversations in the room, and I think that it really did, just like with Meiko, make me stop and think. It is not that it changed my mind about how I feel about vaccines and how I feel about trusting doctors and scientists. But it did give me an understanding of why people could have such a fear. Empathy in this world right now is crucial to maintaining our humanity and being able to reach across to people who think differently than we do. These days it can be so easy to just dismiss and push aside those who do not agree with us 100 percent. Being in this room has made me think about these kinds of ideas from many different perspectives. If we could all just take a moment to look at things from different perspectives, we could make a really wonderful place for all of us.

MI: Representation matters deeply to our readers. What does visibility mean to you as an Asian American performer working in theater today?

Members of the cast of Eureka Day; credit: Eureka Day

AAW: I am so grateful to be able to have worked on the projects that I have worked on. Coming, being able to step into a script that has been established and is set and done, and being able to join all of the other Asian women who have played Meiko makes me feel really proud. I also love that my friend Caroline Chu, she is also in the show with me, and she plays my understudy, but she also has a role in the show as well. We were cast together 10 years ago in this show called Peerless where we played twins. It was a moment where, and she is a little bit younger than I am, it was a moment where I was like, OK, here is this person, and she is so talented and she is so beautiful, and she could totally just take all of my roles, but I did not want to enter that process like that. I just wanted to bring her over and support and lift her up as much as I possibly could, because that is how I think that Asians are going to get seen more in this environment.

I have a list of other Asian women that, if someone reaches out to me for a reading or a role or something, and if I am not able to do it or if I do not feel like I am the right kind of Asian for a certain role, I will give them other names because I am always trying to get us jobs. That is how we are going to move forward, by holding hands and walking together as opposed to trying to push others down or climb up over others.

MI: Finally, if audiences walk away debating Eureka Day over dinner or drinks, what question do you most hope they are still wrestling with?

AAW: We have talked with the cast that this does kind of feel like a run to the bar afterwards kind of show. If you do not drink, then just run to your best seltzer, your flavored seltzer of choice. Other than just having compassion for one another, even in the most trying times, the discussion that I want them to be having is about how we keep each other safe.

At its core, Eureka Day isn’t interested in easy answers. It thrives in the gray areas where good intentions clash and listening becomes harder than speaking. As Adachi-Winter makes clear, the play’s power lies not just in its razor-sharp comedy, but in its invitation to sit with discomfort, extend empathy, and question how we show up for one another when it matters most.

If audiences leave the theater still arguing, reflecting, or rethinking their own assumptions over dinner, drinks, or a favorite flavored seltzer, Eureka Day has done exactly what it set out to do. In a moment when consensus feels increasingly elusive, the play reminds us that the conversation itself, and how we hold space for one another within it, may be the most important act of all.

TICKET INFORMATION

Individual tickets for EUREKA DAY range from $30.00 - $90.00 with a select number of premium tickets available. Ticket price listed is when purchased in person at the box office. Additional fees apply for online purchases. Tickets are available now for groups of 10 or more by calling Broadway In Chicago Group Sales at (312) 977-1710 or emailing GroupSales@BroadwayInChicago.com. For more information, visit www.BroadwayInChicago.com.

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE

Performances are Tuesday through Friday at 7:00 p.m.; Saturday at 2:00 p.m. &; 7:30 p.m.; and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. &
6:30 p.m. There will be additional matinee performances on the following Wednesdays: January 28, February 4, and
February 11 at 1:00 p.m. There will be no Sunday evening performances on February 1, 8, and 15.