“What is best for the kids?” is the question at the heart of Eureka Day, Jonathan Spector’s stinging satire on parental choices vs. community responsibilities. Where they have collided in the past decade is the issue of childhood vaccinations, creating debates that drive public policy to make decisions that aren’t necessarily best for the kids.

Given the anti-vaccination stance of the current United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Spector’s play couldn’t be more timely,  But the Bay Area-based playwright didn’t write the play in response to the current political climate. It was first produced in 2018 in a Berkeley, California regional theater before having its New York City premiere in an off-Broadway house the following year. It received numerous regional theater productions before Covid hit; then re-emerged, first in a starry London production, then on Broadway, where Spector did some rewriting for a production that won the Tony last season for Best Revival of a Play. (Its previous New York production deemed it ineligible for Best Play.) The smart, well-acted production, directed by Margot Bordelon, at the Huntington Theatre marks its Boston debut.

Spector sets his play in a colorful elementary school library at a progressive school in Berkeley, California where a meeting of the school’s board is taking place. The school’s politics are neatly expressed by the signs above the books that read “Fiction,” “Non-fiction,” and “Social Justice.” (The solid design elements are by Luciana Stecconi [sets], Zoë Sundra [costumes], and Cha See [lighting].)

Aside from welcoming a new member, Carina (Eunice Woods), a Black lesbian parent recently relocated from the East Coast, the board argue woke trope — if the term Transracial Adoptee should be added to the drop-down list of racial descriptions for new applications.  Eli (Japhet Balaban), a 30-something tech bro who is a large school donor, wants to include it; but Suzanne (Nancy Lemenager), an authoritative, old school liberal and one of the school’s founders, points out “the fact that you are adopted does not change your race.”

Overseeing the debate is the school’s principal, the 60-something Don (Ken Cheeseman), whose affable presence maintains civility, and Meiko (Sasha Diamond), a biracial-Japanese single mom who spends much of the play knitting and throwing off wry commentary. When newcomer Carina calls for a vote, she is told the board decides by consensus — they all must agree. Throughout the scene, Spector pokes fun at woke values while establishing the fault lines between these characters that erupt when the school is thrown into crisis. That occurs with an outbreak of mumps and the school’s policy on vaccinations (or lack of one) is put into focus when it is learned that a healthy percentage of the students are not vaccinated. The board of health has closed the school down; what can the board do to reopen it?

Don suggests a virtual town-meeting (or as he puts it, “a Community Activated Conversation”). And in the third scene of Spector’s briskly paced 100-minute play, his well-meaning attempt at public debate devolves into a devastatingly funny reminder of how insidious the internet can be. While the board calmly maps out its agenda, the online commentary appears behind them. Spector is not only good at capturing the myopic nature of such comments, but also how cutting and mean-spirited they can be. Name callingName-calling, including evoking Nazis, becomes rampant; and, much to the board’s dismay, the debate ends with one parent calling another a four-letter word.

The scene is a masterstroke of comedy that unfolds beautifully under Bordelon’s direction. The audience’s laughter overwhelms the onstage dialogue, but it hardly matters. The descent into uncivil chaos is Spector’s point, and that it feels so real makes the comedy both funny and sad. And its funniest participant is someone who only comments with emojis — Leslie Kaufman, a parent on the message board who steals the scene without writing a word. (The perfectly-timed projection design is by John Horzen & UptownWorks.)

But after the healthy dose of satire, Spector makes the drama real by drawing personal connections with the crisis and the board members. Meiko has been seeing Eli when his wife is away on business trips. (He claims they have an open relationship.) This crashes when Meiko reveals that her daughter has the mumps and may have infected Eli’s son, whose case is so serious it requires hospitalization and that Eli’s wife has been repeatedly texting her with one mean-spirited epithet. Then in the larger debate that follows, Meiko and Suzanne are revealed to be anti-vaxxers as the board argues whether vaccinations should be mandantorymandatory.

Eureka Day is a stunning mix of satire and social drama, pivoting on whether science or personal anecdotes should determine public policy. Those personal anecdotes come into play when Suzanne movingly talks of why she has an anti-vax stance,. To his credit, Spector never allows these characters to become caricatures; but perhaps that credit should go to Bordelon and her able cast. As Carina, Eunice Woods deftly plays a Black woman who navigates white liberal orthodoxy to find her own truth; Nancy Lemenager is well-cast as the privileged Board member matriarch who movingly sheds her Karen-like demeanor with a speech towards the end. Ken Cheeseman quite effectively shows Don’s ability to be conciliatory and firm; Japhet Balaban brings surprising nuance to the often annoying, self-absorbed Eli, who does express a touching definition of what it means to be a parent; and Sasha Diamond brings dimension to the volatile Meiko, who finds herself central to the anti-vaxxing debate without wanting to be.

Two seasons ago, Bordelon directed a memorable production at the Huntington of John Proctor Is a Villain, Kimberly Belflower’s volatile deconstruction of The Crucible set in a North Carolina high school. With Eureka Day, she achieves something akin to a dramatic high-wire act, balancing social satire with the human stories that sit beneath. That satire is often broad — when concerns are raised about a production of Peter Pan, the solution is to set it in space. But it can also hit home with sharpness and specificity, as when Suzanne assumes Carina’s family is receiving a subsidy to attend the school. It is moments like these that make Eureka Day bristle with a relevance that extends well beyond the vaccine debate. Spector does, in fact, answer the question of what’s best for the children — it’s one essayist Eula Biss anticipated in On Immunity: “In order for this to make sense, one must believe that individuals are not part of the public.” They are, of course. And that’s his point.

Eureka Day continues through June 28. at the Huntington Theatre, 264 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA. For more information, visit the theater’s website at this link.