During pre-production for TimeLine’s Chicago premiere production of Eureka Day, director Lili-Anne Brown (LB) spoke with dramaturgs DeRon S. Williams (DSW) and Grace Herman (GH) about humor, community, and the choreography of a punchline.
(DSW) We know that every director enters a play in their own way. When you first encountered Eureka Day, what was your initial reaction to reading it on the page?
(LB) I could not stop laughing. I love TimeLine, I want to work with Timeline, and I want to be at home in Chicago sometimes—I never am, and that sucks. So, when I get a phone call from a theatre at home that wants to work with me, and it’s my friends—yes, I’m listening. They sent me Eureka Day, which I did not know at all, and I was immediately excited.
(GH) As you look ahead to beginning the process, what do you imagine the first week of rehearsal will look or feel like?
(LB) Table work will be fun. Sit, engage with us. We’re excited to know what we don’t know we need to know.
(GH) Once the actors are assembled and the process is underway, how do you understand your role in the rehearsal room as a director?
(LB): Helping people get out of their own way and removing obstacles. I’m not teaching actors how to act—I hire actors who already know how to act really well. We do the play that’s already written really well. I’m simple. I just get the people in the room and talk about the play.
(DSW) Jonathan Spector wrote this excellent comedy of chaos. In conversation, you mentioned comedy and how it is your jam. Why was this script the one that finally scratched that itch?
(LB) I’m a comedy girl. I have comedy training. A lot of people don’t know I worked with Second City for the better part of a decade. People say—you’re Black, you like Black things, right? You want to do trauma plays? And I say, not really. So it’s nice when colleagues know what kind of play is my kind of play. PJ and Nick knew it would be a good fit. God bless them for knowing.
A well-done comedy does all the things we need theatre to do, plus it makes people laugh.
(GH) How do you see Eureka Day in relation to other contemporary comedies being produced today?
(LB) There really aren’t a lot of truly excellent comedies in modern-day. American theatre sort of got into this space where comedy isn’t taken seriously, like it can’t be important work. But humor holds a truly special place and can be more effective than plays without humor. A well-done comedy does all the things we need theatre to do, plus it makes people laugh.
(GH) What social or human questions do you think the play is grappling with beneath all the humor and chaos?
(LB) It’s not a play about vaccination—it’s a play about how people come together. It’s really a play about community and how to be in community. If we say everyone deserves to be heard, everyone deserves to have their rule implemented, everyone gets to win—this play explores what happens when we try that.
(DSW) Although this play is not about COVID, nor does it reference it, how do you feel the play speaks to our current, post-pandemic moment?
(LB) We lived through the thing. We don’t need to say, “remember?” The new ending addresses the irony that he wrote this, and then it actually happened. I think not leaning into COVID makes the end punchier—the audience can laugh, tell themselves, “this isn’t us,” and then get reminded—we are those people.
(GH) When you mention this cultural moment of “comfort,” what does this production do with that idea or put into tension with it?
(LB) We are in a moment where everyone must be comfortable all the time, which is crazy. That isn’t realistic. So, the play tries it. Let’s make everyone comfortable, everyone right. And then we watch what that looks like. I hope that’s a thing that starts leaving soon.
(DSW) One scene I find extremely funny and interesting is the virtual meeting scene. It’s famous for its chaos. What excites you most about staging it?
(LB) The big challenge is making sure people can see it. We were literally measuring and holding up letters—where do we put the screen? How big can it be? Are we rear-projecting or front-projecting?
Artistically, I want to keep it simple. It’s genius as written. My job is directing attention—timing, timing, timing. We will rehearse that scene more than any other. The big challenge is going to be trying to deliver exactly what Jonathan Spector put on the page, because it is a tightrope. It’s such a delicate dance.
Just to make sure the timing is perfect, I’m going to draw on my musical theater background. It comes in handy. It is not daunting for me. Musical theatre is 5-6-7-8. Not “move when you feel it.” Timing is choreography. I just bring 5-6-7-8 into the room and say, “It’s exactly this every time.” That’s how we make punchlines happen—like music and choreography.
(GH) Let’s discuss the characters. All of them believe they are the most ethical versions of themselves. What contradictions and vulnerabilities do you think will be the most interesting to explore?
(LB) Suzanne. She’s the best. You want to hate her. At auditions, I had to give this spiel about her to ensure the auditions were fair. It would be unfair and a disservice if people came in playing “a Karen.” And that’s what everybody was trying to do. And I said, don’t do that. You must believe in Suzanne. You must believe in her cause. She is right. Everybody is supposed to be right. You can’t play a character you judge. That’s what you come in with … you are right. You believe in what you’re doing.
She’s not a bitch. She doesn’t yell at anybody. She doesn’t say anything untoward to anyone. She hasn’t done anything to warrant the title of a Karen, except be a white woman with an unpopular opinion.
I hope people go home thinking about how to be in community, because we really need to be, now more than ever.
(DSW) How did questions of race, equity, and medical trust—particularly the long histories of vaccine skepticism within Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities—shape the way you approached Eureka Day, especially given the play’s liberal setting where everyone is “right,” heard, and validated?
(LB) That’s a great question, DeRon. They didn’t. Tell me more. I’m Black, I’m from the South Side, everybody got all their shots. There was no skepticism from my [immediate] community. But I guess there are outliers in every community.
Now, hearing you say that, I’m somebody who has experienced not a small amount of medical racism. I know for a fact it exists. So I’m not surprised.
(DSW) Yeah. Those from the South who still hold onto the history and understanding of the Tuskegee experiment, the skepticism still permeates. In the minds of a lot of Black folks, especially those in the South, it became clear when COVID came around. It was kind of a through-line as to why they wouldn’t take the vaccine, and because of the perceived rapid development.
(LB) I thought it was just about it being a new thing, and people having all this weird skepticism because of the government. But that was already there, huh? Wow! So, I’m learning that, because the community I grew up in, there wasn’t any of that.
And I grew up in an old-ass community. My dad was born in 1924, and he probably knew people involved in the Tuskegee experiment because he was also in the Army and had a lot of crazy stories like that. I would not be surprised if he knew people it actually happened to. But there was none of that in my upbringing.
Carina, our one Black character, is not really coming from a perspective of vaccine skepticism. The sort of racial dynamics that are happening in the show, which is also the thing that makes us want to call Suzanne a Karen—is her microaggressions. And that is valid, because she does, she is a perpetrator. So that we’re dealing with in the play. But I don’t think Carina has any vaccine skepticism.
(DSW) When the audience leaves the theatre, what do you hope stays with them?
(LB) We’re losing our way in terms of community—what it is, and what it means to be in community. I hope people go home thinking about how to be in community, because we really need to be, now more than ever. And comedy helps the medicine go down. It lets us see ourselves without massive amounts of shame—like, “oh, damn, do I do that?” Being able to laugh gives us a little bit of slack, and maybe that is what allows us to actually examine something or change a behavior.
Eureka Day runs at Broadway In Chicago’s Broadway Playhouse from January 13 – February 22, 2026.