Spector

Pasadena Playhouse announced a 2025-26 season Thursday led by Jonathan Spector’s satire “Eureka Day,” a newly minted Tony Award winner for best revival of a play, which centers on a mumps outbreak at a progressive private school in Berkeley whose PTA tries to come up with a vaccine policy that suits everyone — to hilarious results in an era of vaccine skepticism.

After The Ronettes and producer Phil Spector declined to record the composition, The Beach Boys landed a Top 40 hit with the song.

When he learned that the reporter knew one of Wilson’s early inspirations, record producer Phil Spector, his eyes lit up.

He spoke warmly about Spector and other early favorites like Chuck Berry, Little Richard and the Four Freshmen.

As a composer of melodies, a constructor of textures, an arranger of vocal harmonies — as someone who knew how to pull complicated elements together into songs that somehow felt inevitable — he was up there with Phil Spector, George Martin and the Motown team of Holland-Dozier-Holland.