When a mumps outbreak hits a small progressive school in Berkeley, California, parents who once agreed on everything find themselves suddenly divided. ‘Eureka Day,’ a play by Jonathan Spector, uses humor and heart to explore the messy intersection of personal choice, public health, and community trust. In this episode, we talk with Kathleen Johnson, Director of Outreach and Education at Riverside Theatre and the director of ‘Eureka Day’ in Iowa City. Kathleen shares how the production connects with real-world public health issues—especially vaccine hesitancy and communication across different beliefs—and why theater can sometimes say what data alone can’t.

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the student hosts, guests, and contributors, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the University of Iowa or the College of Public Health.

Lauren Lavin:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Plugged Into Public Health. I’m Lauren Lavin, and today I’m joined by my co-host Caroline Powell. And if it’s your first time with us, welcome. We’re a student-run podcast that explores major issues in public health and how they connect to the everyday world around us. And today we’re talking with Kathleen Johnson, director of outreach and education at Riverside Theatre and the director of Eureka Day, a play that takes a sharp, funny, and deeply human look at public health, personal belief, and community decision-making. Set in a progressive school community that finds itself divided over a mumps outbreak, Eureka Day tackles questions about vaccines, science and communication with humor and compassion. Kathleen joins us to share how this play came to Iowa City, what it reveals about dialogue and division in our communities, and how theater can open space for empathy in tough public health conversations.

Now let’s get Plugged Into Public Health. Plugged Into Public Health is produced and edited by students of the University of Iowa College of Public Health. And the views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the student hosts, guests, and contributors. They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the University of Iowa or the College of Public Health. Well, Kathleen, thank you so much for joining the podcast today. I really appreciate you taking time to chat with us.

Kathleen Johnson:

Thank you for having me.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. Could you start with introducing yourself, a little bit of who you are, where you’re from?

Kathleen Johnson:

My name is Kathleen Johnson, and I live here in Iowa City and I work at Riverside Theatre, right down in the heart of downtown, and my job is the Director of Outreach and Education. And for this particular production that we’re going to talk about today, Eureka Day, I’m the director of the show as well.

Lauren Lavin:

Is this the first time you’re directing?

Kathleen Johnson:

No, it’s the first time I’m directing here, at Riverside. I’ve directed in other cities that I’ve lived in before, so it’s not new to me, but it’s the first time that I’m getting to do this, here at our professional theater in town. I’m really excited about it.

Lauren Lavin:

And what is your background?

Kathleen Johnson:

Yeah, so I grew up in Iowa City. I went to West High and, in fact, I have a deep relationship with the College of Public Health. My dad worked here for like 30 years and since retired. I went away to school. I went to the University of Notre Dame, where I studied theater in English and then came back to Iowa to get my master’s in teaching. In fact, while I was here, I actually worked on a public health campaign to help pay my way through college. For those who might remember, until you’re ready, avoid the stork. I got to work with the College of Public Health, traveling all over the state of Iowa in a giant stork costume, helping to spread some very important messages.

Lauren Lavin:

I hope it was the middle of winter because that has to be hot.

Kathleen Johnson:

It was absolutely not. We went to a lot of county fairs, where we would hand out items-

Lauren Lavin:

[inaudible 00:02:46], yep.

Kathleen Johnson:

And yeah, it was always one person was assigned to the costume and it was always a very personal-

Lauren Lavin:

It was [inaudible 00:02:51].

Kathleen Johnson:

And smelly role. It was.

Lauren Lavin:

I went to the Iowa State Fair this year and I thought it was so fun, but there were also a lot of the campaign type things, so I can imagine that happening.

Kathleen Johnson:

Yeah, I got to see a lot of parts of the state of Iowa that I had never been to before, and so it started my little love affair with the College of Public Health. So when we chose this show as a part of our season, a big part of my day job at the theater is to find ways that we can connect with community organizations or individuals who exemplify some of the more real life either themes or experiences that are seen fictionalized on stage. And so when we chose this production, it was the first group that I thought of and connected with, to see if there were ways that maybe we could either support or sponsor or even just find ways to reach out to those who are interested and passionate about these themes.

Lauren Lavin:

As a little bit of background also, could you talk about Riverside Theatre and just, I mean, even rant as to where it is, what kind of productions you do, who are the actors that you employ?

Kathleen Johnson:

Absolutely. So Riverside Theatre is in its 45th season, around for a long time, yes. We are one of two professional theaters in the state of Iowa, which means that everyone who works for us, from the actors to the designers up and down, gets paid for the work that they do. We used to be, for a long time, we’re out of what is now the James Theatre, right around the corner from Bluebird Diner. A number of years ago, we moved to our new home, right in the Ped Mall. I say we’re right next to you. We’re neighbors with Revival on one side and then Stuffed Olive on the other side. And if those two landmarks don’t do it for you, we’re right across the street from Brothers and usually-

Lauren Lavin:

Have to cover all of it. Yeah.

Kathleen Johnson:

Of those three, we hit everyone’s mental spacings in downtown Iowa City. It’s a wonderful, 160 seat black box theater. It is able to be adapted and manipulated to various settings, depending on the shows that we do. And I like to say that Riverside does your next favorite play that you maybe never have heard of. So we tend to, in the course of our season, we tend to do some classics. We just closed Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and in fact, after Eureka Day, we’re doing Agatha Christie’s, The Mousetrap. So we have a few shows that hit at maybe the heart of what you might think of when you think of theater, and then we often do more contemporary productions, like Eureka Day by Jonathan Spector. It just recently won the Tony for Best Revival, which was a little unusual because it was only written in 2016, but was very relevant, I think, to that time and maybe even more relevant to today. And then we’ll also do new works. This season, we have two shows that are world premieres that are coming up. So never been incredible.

Lauren Lavin:

That’s incredible. I knew there was so much history in Riverside Theatre.

Kathleen Johnson:

Yes. The other way people might know of Riverside is we produce, every summer, we produce Free Shakespeare in the park. So if you’ve seen the big, globe-like stage in Lower City Park, that’s us also.

Lauren Lavin:

I loved that this summer. We went to Romeo and Juliet.

Kathleen Johnson:

Oh, wonderful.

Lauren Lavin:

I was shocked because I always thought Shakespeare was so otherworldly and I thought it was so understandable, the way that actors did such a great job this summer.

Kathleen Johnson:

Our belief, and part of why it is free, is we believe Shakespeare is for everyone, and that’s usually not our experiences. It’s not always our experiences when growing up. It can feel very inaccessible. And so that’s part of what we do is try to show people that it is very relatable and very understandable. So I’m so glad that you had that experience.

Lauren Lavin:

You hit that mark. So now we’re going to actually turn to what we’re going to be talking about …

Kathleen Johnson:

Excellent.

Lauren Lavin:

Which is the Eureka Day play. Could you start off by telling us a little bit about the play, what’s it about and what drew Riverside particularly to produce it this season?

Kathleen Johnson:

Absolutely. So Eureka Day is by Jonathan Spector. Like I said, it was written in 2016, but has had a very recent revival and won the Tony this year. It is about a small, private elementary school in Berkeley, California. The characters in the play are the PTA, if you will, and then the head of school or the principal. And it begins with exactly what you would imagine, if you imagine who the parents that attend a small private school in Berkeley, California would be like. They all tend to land on a very similar political spectrum. They actually operate by consensus, so they do not have board votes. They stay and talk it out until they all agree on something. And there’s almost a little bit of, dare I say, performative nature to how interested they are in showing everyone they are open to all viewpoints in all perspectives.

It’s very funny throughout, but especially off the bat and you get the idea, oh, this is just what this group is like until we get the news that the school has been shut down by the health department because there is a mumps outbreak. And in learning about that, they realize, oh, about half the school is unvaccinated. And suddenly, this group of people that thought they were all very much on the same page in ways of life realize we have fundamental, core differences in what we believe. And we get to see the maybe spectrum of parental beliefs on the role that vaccines play, in terms of how they might utilize them in their family or not and the experiences that they’ve had with them. And we see how does collective decision-making exist when we have these deep frictions?

Lauren Lavin:

This sounds like real world that we’re watching play out in front of us.

Kathleen Johnson:

Yeah. It is, for a script that was in 2016, it is eerily relevant now. There are a number of things brought up that feel, there’s one massive scene, maybe the funniest and one of the pinnacle scenes, and it is to inform the community, the school community of what’s happened, they hold essentially a Zoom town hall. And we, as the audience, get to not only see the head of school and some of the parents try to present what’s happening and maybe slip their own perspectives and point of views into that information, but also we get to see the comments section from all of the other parents that never actually appear on the stage. And it is about as wild as you would imagine Facebook comment section to be. It brings up, I mean it has references to Tylenol. I mean there are all sorts of things that feel like they’re ripped, written straight from last week.

Lauren Lavin:

That’s crazy.

Caroline Powell:

It’s like those ripped from the headlines. That’s so Law & Order.

Kathleen Johnson:

It is. It is the Law & Order of plays. And then you think about what, in some ways I think that, and we talk about this a lot with the actors, what are the preconceived notions that our audience is coming in with? And in some ways the playwright says from the jump for us in the script, he’s like, “It can be really tempting to think of these people as caricatures, and they’re not that.” He says, “It is a drama with a lot of comedy, not a satire.”

And so we’re working really hard to, I think, explore and understand that people’s belief systems come from their experiences and they’re held deeply, even when the way that they talk and the way they come across can feel very caricature-ish. And we talk about the experiences our audience have, just watching the news, coming in and how they’re going to perceive certain characters based on some of the things they say and really working to see where can we subvert that and try to help an audience see someone as a fully fleshed out, 3D human, even when our gut reaction is how could you say that? How can you believe that?

Lauren Lavin:

Do you try to validate all of these opinions within the play?

Kathleen Johnson:

I would say maybe not quite, but I do think that the goal of the play, and when Jonathan Spector wrote it, it wasn’t to write a play about vaccines. It was to write a play about how do people who think they agree and find out that they don’t, how do we still communicate and connect and understand those around us, who have wildly different viewpoints? Can we find moments of interaction and connection and where do they break down? And so the play is written in a way that fully fleshes out every person. I think there is something to love about each person, and I think it does a really good job of giving you a deep understanding of where their belief systems come from and how they exert themselves.

But the play, and our production, also realizes that there isn’t necessarily, we don’t try to create a false equivalency here. Ultimately when you’re talking about the role of public health and what it means to live in a community and keep that community safe, that at the end of the day, it can’t be as simple as saying, “You do what’s best for your family and I’ll do what’s best for mine.” Because what we might believe is best still has a deep impact on the health of those around us.

Caroline Powell:

And so because the play tackles vaccines, public health, personal choice, and a lot of other charged topics using humor, how do you manage to take on these topics that really mean a lot to people, like you said, and they have different opinions, while keeping the audience laughing and engaged?

Kathleen Johnson:

Yeah. Well, I mean the play does a lot of work for us in that. I think the text of it all, when you’re dealing with any comedy, true comedy comes from, not necessarily from a joke, I think, but from a recognition and realizing that I’ve seen that. I know that to be true and that’s what makes it funny. And so we have an excellent script that helps with that, and really doing the work for, I mean, we have actors who are playing people who feel fundamentally different from them and doing the work to say, “What is redeemable about your character? What is there to love? And why do other people love your character?” Otherwise, we just dismiss people out of hand. It’s really easy, especially these days, to disengage from conversation. It would be a bad play if it did that. We’d be done in five minutes and they would just go, “I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

What is it that keeps pulling each other back? And then playing around with that, of what can we find and understand and love about these people? It’s funny, when we looked at this play when we originally read it and were deciding to produce it, I, having grown up in Iowa City and seeing Iowa City as it’s, I think like a lot of people do, as maybe its own little bubble within the state, I was like, well, this will be a really good thought exercise for our community. My assumption going into it was everyone will feel very, all of our audience members will be coming from a place of very pro-vaccination.

And so I went into this, and even in my initial conversations with community leaders and activists in this area, I think I quickly learned, oh no, I think our community actually is far more diverse and in their thinking around pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine or vaccine hesitancy than I anticipated. And even just doing a little investigating on Facebook, Iowa City Crunchy Mamas popped off a few months ago on these topics and some by name and some anonymously. Just the nuances and intricacies of how people debate this stuff is very real and very present to our community. And so trying not to flatten anyone out, I guess, maybe is the way we find both the comedy and tackle some of the harder conversations.

Caroline Powell:

And I’m curious because I feel like with, I’m happy you mentioned vaccine hesitancy, because I feel like a lot of times these feelings stem from just a place of concern or just not knowing about ingredients or the complex scientific parts of it. So how do you think comedy is effective as opposed to maybe taking a more fear-based or shame-based approach?

Kathleen Johnson:

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think vulnerability and shame live right next to each other, I think. And so shaming someone is never a good way to create a space of vulnerability, which is I think where we all need to get in order to consider our own beliefs. So I think comedy is a wonderful way of accessing the parts of ourselves that we don’t always feel super good about or the parts that maybe we need to question. It lets us do that in a comfortable environment. The play itself also shows it is not black versus white, and I don’t think that the conversations around this are.

And so we get to see a parent who is, it just seems natural that you would get your kids vaccinated, and I don’t even know why this is a conversation we’re having because of course that’s what we should do, a parent who goes, “How could you,” and we learn about their personal experiences that have led to this, “But, how could you put your child at risk and how could we ask other parents to do that? The reason we have this school is so that parents and families who feel this way about a lot of things have space to exist.” And then we have parents in between some who are like, “We did the delayed schedule and everyone was mad at us about it.” We have parents who, one character who, throughout the entire thing, talks about there’s so much about parenting, about medicine that we don’t know, and maybe we’re messing it up and what if we are getting it wrong? And I think maybe the overloading of information leading to either calcifying your belief system or questioning everything, and you get to see them go through all of those.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, I think it’s really easy to picture, especially around the vaccine conversation, as it being black and white, but there’s so much gray in it. And I think that that, from what you’re describing, will be what is played out a little bit.

Kathleen Johnson:

Yeah.

Lauren Lavin:

No pun intended.

Kathleen Johnson:

The play itself references, it doesn’t ever list by name, but it references the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program titled Vaccine Court, which I think is a layman’s reference to it. And again, it doesn’t bring up by name, but it mentions the Hannah Poling case and that idea that, even that we have systems in place that we acknowledge that vaccines are mostly good for most people, but that any form of medicine, when you combine it with our own genetics, can have adverse side effects to varying degrees. And that we have a system in place that can speak to that and that defaults to, we would rather someone who we couldn’t prove had this impact because of a vaccine get some compensation than someone who did have an adverse side effect from one get nothing, while still saying, “These are good for most people, and we don’t want those rare individuals who have these experiences to stop or limit the process of getting them out.”

And even for those people, there was a wonderful interview with a lawyer whose primary work is to represent families who are experiencing this, and she was like, “Most of them come in and want to, right off the bat, be like, ‘I’m not an anti-vaxxer,'” because there are so many notions we have about who that person might be and why. And instead it’s like, I believe that vaccines are good and I think this thing happened to me or my family because of this.

And so we also try to find that too. Even the one character who feels very deeply rooted in no one should be forced to get a vaccine still has so much about her that’s caring for others and trusting in systems. And she’s quick to point out that there are other, at one point, there’s a metaphor of, well, if we had a creationist family at this school, would we suddenly stop teaching evolution? And her immediate reaction is, how could you even compare me to someone like that? And really, I think, maybe trying to add someone is not only one type of person, and people come to this for a variety of reasons.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. Have you thought about how you think the audience is going to respond to watching these, probably even debates they’ve had in their own life play out?

Kathleen Johnson:

Yeah. I mean, the beauty of comedy is I think that with any play that we do, Riverside really tries to push, we call it serious-minded theater, which doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a drama, but it’s stuff that makes you think and question. And like with anything, sometimes it is uncomfortable to question things or to be presented with that. And so I think it’s entirely possible that we’re going to have audience members that say, “Oh, well, this is how the play ended, and I don’t think that that’s what it should have been.” Or, “I don’t think this character got enough recognition for X, Y, or Z beliefs.” But I do think the role of comedy comes back there, where it really allows us to look at something and if we’re not quite ready to look ourselves in the mirror on something, that we can at least just tiptoe our way into it.

One thing that I’m really excited about, especially as it pertains to the College of Public Health, is we’re doing a talk back. So with members of the College of Public Health and the wider community, it’ll be Saturday, October 25th, following the show. Our talk backs are open to the public, so even if you choose not to attend the show at all, or if you choose not to attend it that day, you can still come to the theater to listen to that talk back. We have Dr. Aaron Shearer, who’s an associate professor of internal medicine and does a lot of medical decision making research, who’s a part of it. Dr. Peter Wallace, who’s a retired pediatrician in Iowa City, but has a long history of service in public health and actually had an instrumental role on a nationwide level with some of these early debates about the role of vaccine injury compensation programming, and how does the federal government have a role in some of this.

Karrey Shannon, who’s an RN and is a community health nurse for Johnson County Public Health, and then Dr. Maurine Neiman, who’s a professor of biology and gender and women’s studies, but also is an avid parent advocate in the immunization space. And with that talk back, you spoke maybe a little bit to the broad array of viewpoints or are we equalizing things? We don’t have someone on the panel who avidly disagrees with vaccination, and it’s not because those people don’t exist, but I’m not sure that the science supports that viewpoint. That being said, we really tried to work to have people on the panel who are on the ground, interacting with those in our community who hold that viewpoint, who are trying to understand where that hesitancy comes from, and giving voice to that perspective in those ways without creating a false equivalency of these two belief systems live on the same plane.

Lauren Lavin:

Right. I’m sure you’re having to find that line of where science supports and where it doesn’t.

Kathleen Johnson:

Yeah. I think there are some things that, I think there are a lot of situations politically, especially, where we can say, “What we believe in is subjective, and you have a right to hold your viewpoint,” but even in the play itself, there’s a moment where someone says, “Every point of view is valid and no one has the right to tell us that it’s not valid.” And a parent’s like, “Well, I’m not sure that I totally agree with that.” There’s ways to respect other people’s viewpoints and experiences while still acknowledging there are some firm truths that we know and can use to guide how we make decisions for a whole. Yeah.

Caroline Powell:

That gets back to, I know all the characters are well-intentioned, whether they show that or not, but the communication aspect is really important and it sounds like it breaks down fairly quickly …

Kathleen Johnson:

It does.

Caroline Powell:

In the play. What does the play reveal about how communities handle that disagreement and uncertainty?

Kathleen Johnson:

Yeah, I think the play, because of the varying ways that we see communication happening, we get to see different versions of it. So we have the Zoom conference scene, if you will, which is a wonderful insight into any comment section. Things go off the rails quickly, and you have, it is done in a way that is so common to us with social media, which is, I can say what I want to say even to a person that my kid has a play date with. But I can use language that is violent and offensive, and I feel free to do that in a way that is shocking and we perhaps never would in person.

And then because this is a PTA that is having these meetings and needs to be a decision-making body, they are in the room together, looking at one another, figuring out the gentle nuances of how firmly do I push? How insistent am I that we don’t just gloss over something? Because man, wouldn’t it be great if we all just agreed and then we could move on, where there is this, I think we need to come back to that because we don’t agree. And in some ways, we get to see the idea of are we really listening to one another or are we just waiting for our turn to talk? And what does it look like when you think you’re hearing someone say exactly what you believe and then realize like, oh no, you were fundamentally misunderstanding me. I care about you. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but we do not agree on this and we can’t gloss over that anymore.

Lauren Lavin:

Right. As an educator, do you think that this informed the way that you view these scenes play out? Have you experienced this type of thing?

Kathleen Johnson:

Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, I think that, as someone who was a teacher in the classroom, and then when we moved to Iowa City, my children began public school and I got to see the school experience from the parent perspective. Additionally, my son has a rare genetic mutation and a pretty profound disability because of it. And so I have very specific experiences as a parent who’s looking at what’s best for my child in this classroom environment and does that coincide with or does it butt up against the experiences of everyone else in the room as well? Ultimately, he’s only one kid who’s in that space, so how do I make sure that his needs are met while also realizing that every other kid has a need that needs to be met as well?

And so seeing all of that, the nuances of how we connect with each other, and then this play, it’s the people. It’s set where it’s set for a reason. The people are who they are for a reason. You have these people who walk through life believing, and I think truthfully so in a lot of situations, that they have a deep care and understanding for those who are different for a profound love of diversity. And yet even if we believe that’s who we are, what happens when that butts up against other core beliefs that we have? How do we accidentally, or maybe not so, harm the people around us when we’re fighting for those things?

Lauren Lavin:

Every sentence you say, I keep thinking this is just so relatable to our lives here and now.

Kathleen Johnson:

Yeah, it is. And I think from a, I’ve had these conversations not just with College of Public Health, but also School of Medicine and med students and stuff. I think that for those of you sometimes, and I appreciate this, sometimes when you live and breathe and work in a space, you’re like, I don’t want my entertainment to be about that. Emergency room doctors, I can’t watch The Pitt. Or lawyers, don’t show me law and order. There is a stressfulness about that and a clear recognition of how different what I’m seeing fictionalized is from what I’m experiencing in real life. What I think is great about this play is it revolves around all of these ideas of health and medicine, but there is no health department employee that comes in and talks to them. There isn’t the doctor, there isn’t a pediatrician.

All of those worlds exist right around the play, but ultimately these are just like everyday people, parents, educators, who are the vessel for the information that they’re hearing and how they interpret it and spit it out. And I think there is real power, if you work in those spaces, to see how this is what I know to be true, but these are how other people who don’t live in my world take that in. And sometimes you’re like, you got it. That is exactly what we know. And you’re like, wow, you totally misread this fact for your own purposes. So I think it’s a really interesting peek into that world, even though it’s a fictional play.

Caroline Powell:

And that’ll make people better practitioners, I think.

Kathleen Johnson:

I think so.

Caroline Powell:

For sure. I know Riverside is known for sparking meaningful conversations after the curtain falls. I know I’ve been to Native Gardens and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

Kathleen Johnson:

Oh, wonderful.

Caroline Powell:

And every time, the ride home we’re just like, “Oh my goodness, this part and that part and that line.” And so I guess, what do you hope the production among audience members, especially because we’re in Iowa and Iowa City and it takes place in Berkeley, in California, so what are you hoping people get out of it and start talking about?

Kathleen Johnson:

Well, I think, something I’ve done for my research, I mean aside from Iowa’s fundamentally different from coastal California, the city of Berkeley and the people who are in it, I think, are very similar to Iowa City. We’re both arts-centric spaces, we’re both university-centered towns, academically-centric towns. We both lean politically liberal, maybe not quite as juxtaposed to the states that those cities are in, but there’s a lot to share and I think there’s a lot of Iowa City in the characters that exist. The overlap is there. And so what I hope audiences take away from it from whatever space they are living in when they come and enter it, I think our rhetoric and our understanding of those around us can feel super bifurcated right now, and understandably so. It can be really hard to look at someone who has a belief system different than yours and say, “Is there a way for me to still love this person or find value in who they are and what they can share in the community? Are there still overlaps in things that we believe together?”

And I get why it’s hard to do that because sometimes you say, “If you can believe this, we are nothing alike.” And I get that. I understand that, but it worries me to think where we’re going if we can’t find those other moments. It doesn’t mean we change where our belief systems are, necessarily, but at least a first step would be saying, “I know that this exists about you and I still can find things to love and appreciate about you and ways for us to keep lines of communication open.” Because ultimately, it is through communication, where I think we do start to make those inroads and progress, and we need it now more than ever. I mean, vaccination rates in our own community are going down and not up. I think these are very real concerns.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. So do you think this play could be put on in a community that is much more conservative? You talked about how Berkeley and Iowa City are really similar.

Kathleen Johnson:

Yeah.

Lauren Lavin:

But do you think it could be put on anywhere?

Kathleen Johnson:

I think so. I think so because I think there are ways that this play could be produced as a satire. And I think it would make laughs come really easily, but I think it would limit the depth and understanding. And so I think there are bad ways to produce this play wherever you are. There’s a version of this play that could just laugh at these silly Berkeley liberals who live in this world, and I think it could do that in our community too. Oh my gosh, look at that. That guy’s a mansplainer and that woman’s a Karen.

But I think that ultimately, you get a deep insight into who each of these people are and why they feel the way that they do, and there’s something relatable about all of them. And so I think that it could be produced in many different communities, and probably will be over the course of, I think its brief run on Broadway recently and it’s Tony Award, I think, has meant for a lot of regional theaters across the country to produce it. And so I think we’re going to see it pop up more. I think most of it is a question of if you can come in with an openness to hear it.

Lauren Lavin:

And that speaks a little bit to the creative process. What has been the most exciting or surprising part about bringing Eureka Day with this cast and team to Iowa City?

Kathleen Johnson:

Well, so on a very personal level, maybe not public health adjacent, but we’ve been partnering also with the school district to help with our set because it’s set in an elementary school library. And so that is delightful, to walk into a theater and you see all the way down to the tile on the floors is going to give you deep flashbacks-

Lauren Lavin:

I love that.

Kathleen Johnson:

To your experiences. We have a lovely ABC rug, the reading rug, and there are a handful of adult-sized chairs, but pretty much everything in it is meant for a third-grader. There is a whimsy to the space, and I think that also maybe adds not just to the comedy, but the absurdity of moments and the truthfulness of it, where we have adults who are living their adult lives and thinking about big topics in a space that is meant for children, and how quickly maybe we divert to childlike behavior when having difficult conversations. And so that’s been a joy. And also getting the chance to learn more. Part of the role that I have at the theater is, within the world of theater, we call it dramaturgy, but it’s really just like researcher.

And for plays, I get to look at some of the things that are mentioned or the time period that it’s set in, and get to find the hard facts and truth to be able to share with the cast or the director, when it’s not me, and say, “Here’s what’s being referenced here.” And so learning about, I did not know about vaccine Court before starting this. I didn’t know it existed. I didn’t know about the current vaccination rates in our community. I see pinged on my social media, measles potential outbreak, but I didn’t understand the depth of the current state of where we are, aside from our current national conversations around some of these things.

And so getting maybe a deeper understanding of not only where my community is, which is different than I think where I perceived my community to be on this issue, but also what exists. Who’s on the ground doing the difficult work of understanding where people are coming from, of helping to assuage concerns and helping to just open access where access is a limitation has been really rewarding, getting to see it play out in my community. And then I’m eager to see what people think of it. I mean, I don’t think we’re going to have protests out in front of the theater, but I am eager to see where our audiences land and what their takeaway is from it. How many leave just going, “That was hilarious. I had so much fun at the theater,” which is so important. Joy and laughter is really important always, especially now, but then who goes, “Oh, I really connected with this person,” or, “I hated this character until this scene, and then I got it.” I’m excited for that.

Caroline Powell:

I’m also just curious because I’m not a parent and I’m not responsible for other tiny humans, and I feel like that is something I won’t be able to relate to in the play. So for people who may not be responsible for tiny humans or on a PTA, why do you think it’s important for them to see it, and what do you think they could take away from it?

Kathleen Johnson:

Thankfully? Thankfully, these issues aren’t ever present almost daily on a national scale. And so I think that there is so much to relate to in the conversation and perspectives that have absolutely nothing to do with parenthood or childhood. These are conversations that we’re all having right now about even just as an adult, regardless of my marital status or parental status, can I get a vaccine? How do I feel about that for me? The New York Times just had an article the other day about children, well, adults now, but who has children whose parents didn’t vaccinate them, and how they are now navigating that world of figuring out for themselves, how do I get vaccinated? Do I want to? And so I think a lot of these conversations are relatable just at a human level.

The thing that I think that really hits me as a parent is maybe less the weight of responsibility of caring for another one, but just how much information there is and how confusing and difficult it is to feel like I’m making any decision for this little person and the weight of how am I raising them and is it right? And there’s just so many different perspectives, and if you look anything up, you’re going to find someone and go, “This is the key to raising a great kid who’s going to have a wonderful relationship with you.” And then someone else going, “If you do that, you are hurting your child and they’ll never have a relationship as an adult.” It’s just so much. And then I think we all, most of us, find ourselves interacting with people, having to interact with people, that we fundamentally disagree with on anything. And how do I do that?

Lauren Lavin:

How do we navigate that? Even if it’s not vaccine-related, guessing a lot of us could … we have other issues.

Kathleen Johnson:

Yes. And so much of that communication around any topic is going to feel relevant, and you’re going to be like, “I’ve been in that conversation before. I’ve seen that conversation. Oh my gosh, I was that person.”

Lauren Lavin:

Right. So as we wrap this up …

Kathleen Johnson:

Yes.

Lauren Lavin:

Can you tell us, if we want tickets, where do we get them? What are the dates of the play? Just give us the nitty-gritty [inaudible 00:39:23].

Kathleen Johnson:

Absolutely. Yes. So Riverside Theatre, downtown Iowa City. The play opens on October 24th and runs for three weekends. We open on a Friday, but otherwise we run Thursdays through Sundays. It is not a long play, so you’re not going to be leaving the theater at 11:30 at night. But if you tend not to be a night owl, our Sunday shows are at 2:00, so it’s a great matinee option. We do have two talk back opportunities that you can either attend that night or choose to come back for. The first weekend, October 25th, is a public health night and post-show, we’ll have that community panel that I talked about.

And then on Sunday, there’s a talk back that’s led by Professor Emeritus Miriam Gilbert and includes the director and the cast, and is an opportunity maybe to get a little less focused in on the public health topic, but more on process and what did I just see? And I have questions about that character. Can you, actor, answer this for me? I’m curious about this. If you want to get information, you can go to riversidetheater.org, the website. You can get your tickets on there. You can also pop by the box office or call the box office. And if you’re listening to this, I’m assuming you are associated with the College of Public Health and there is a 20% discount on tickets, and you can connect with the university to be able to get that. I think there are flyers popping around and information popping around on how to access that. I hope you come and if you do come and you heard this podcast, tell me, come find me and say hi, and I would love to hear about it.

Lauren Lavin:

Thank you so much. This was so interesting. I can’t wait to see it. Now I’m so excited.

Caroline Powell:

I’m so excited. And congratulations. This is a major feat.

Kathleen Johnson:

Thanks.

Caroline Powell:

It’s great.

Kathleen Johnson:

It’s very exciting. I would love your feedback, good or bad or ugly. I am. I am well-versed, after rehearsing this, to be prepared for anything that comes my way.

Lauren Lavin:

I’m sure.

Kathleen Johnson:

I can’t wait to hear what you all think.

Lauren Lavin:

How long have you been rehearsing?

Kathleen Johnson:

Yeah, it’s a really quick process. So we started rehearsals on September 30th and we’ll open-

Lauren Lavin:

Wow.

Kathleen Johnson:

Yeah, so we rehearse six days a week for five hours each day.

Lauren Lavin:

Wow.

Kathleen Johnson:

Yeah. So it’s quick.

Lauren Lavin:

Can’t wait.

Caroline Powell:

Cool.

Kathleen Johnson:

Thank you both so much. It was really a joy to be on this, so thank you for having me.

Lauren Lavin:

That’s it for our episode this week. A big thank you to Kathleen Johnson from Riverside Theatre for joining us and sharing her insight into Eureka Day, a production that reminds us how complex and emotional public health can be when it’s lived out in our daily lives. Today’s conversation explored how humor and storytelling can bridge difficult divides, why community dialogue matters as much as data and how theater can inspire reflection long after the curtain falls.

This episode was hosted and written by Lauren Lavin and Caroline Powell, and edited and produced by Lauren Lavin. You can learn more about the University of Iowa College of Public Health on Facebook. Our podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and SoundCloud. If you enjoyed this episode and want to support the show, please share it with your friends, colleagues, or anyone interested in public health and the arts. Have a suggestion for a future episode? Reach us anytime at cph-gradambassador@uiowa.edu. This episode is brought to you by the University of Iowa College of Public Health. Until next time, stay healthy, stay curious, and take care.