“Little Bear Ridge Road,” Samuel D. Hunter’s acclaimed small-cast play about loneliness, compassion and a search for connection between an aunt and her nephew in rural Idaho, will come to Broadway this fall in a production starring Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock.
The production, directed by Joe Mantello (“Wicked”), will mark the return to Broadway of the producer Scott Rudin, who in 2021 paused his producing activities and resigned from the Broadway League amid reports of bullying behavior toward assistants and others.
Rudin is producing the show with Barry Diller, the billionaire media mogul who has frequently backed his shows.
The play is scheduled to begin previews Oct. 7 and to open Oct. 30 at the Booth Theater for an 18-week limited run.
Hunter, the playwright, is best known for “The Whale,” which was adapted into a 2022 film. He was raised in Idaho and many of his plays are set there and feature socially isolated working-class characters. This will be Hunter’s first play staged on Broadway.
“My initial impulse for writing the play — which I told to Joe and Laurie, and I credit them that they still had faith in me after I said this — is that I wanted to write a play about people watching television,” Hunter said in a telephone interview. “That was the platform for the play, but the play became this story of this aunt and this nephew who have almost no relationship, and a lot of painful history between them, hunkering down together during the pandemic, and both of them trying to figure out a path forward in a deeply complicated reality.”
Hunter wrote the play at the request of Metcalf and Mantello, whom he had never met, but who reached out to ask him to consider writing something for them. The actress and the director are frequent collaborators. Each of them has two Tony Awards — she for “A Doll’s House, Part 2” and “Three Tall Women” and he for “Assassins” and “Take Me Out.” Hunter quickly accepted the challenge.
The play, named for the road that Hunter’s father lives on, was first staged last year at Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago, also with Metcalf and Stock in the main roles. That production drew strong reviews; Chris Jones of The Chicago Tribune called it “a beautifully personal play,” while Steven Oxman of The Chicago Sun-Times described it as “bleakly funny, poetic in its plainness, aching in its intense empathy for the characters, brought to brilliant life, and eventually explosive drama.”
Reflecting some of the complexity of Rudin’s return to Broadway, Steppenwolf has opted not to be involved with the Broadway transfer. “Steppenwolf is proud to have commissioned the world premiere of ‘Little Bear Ridge Road’ by Samuel D. Hunter, however we have decided to not take a role in producing the Broadway production,” the theater’s leadership said in a statement. “We wish ensemble member Laurie Metcalf, director Joe Mantello and Sam all the best.”
Hunter, asked about Rudin’s involvement, said, “I’m just so grateful that we’re able to bring this to Broadway, and it wouldn’t be happening if it weren’t for Scott. I did not know him before this process, and the Scott that I have come to know has been very thoughtful and passionate and focused on the work.”
Michael Paulson is the theater reporter for The Times.
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