Producers Scott Rudin and Barry Diller announced today that Samuel D. Hunter’s Little Bear Ridge Road will premiere on Broadway for a limited 18-week run this fall in a production starring Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock, under the direction of Joe Mantello.
Metcalf and Stock will reprise their acclaimed performances from the production’s world premiere last year at The Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. Performances will begin on Tuesday, October 7, ahead of a Thursday, October 30 opening night at Broadway’s Booth Theatre.
Steppenwolf has opted not to participate in the Broadway production.
The production marks Rudin’s return to Broadway since his 2021 departure following allegations of bullying his staff. In a New York Times profile three months ago, Rudin announced his plans to resume his producing career, saying has undergone “a decent amount of therapy.” He called his previous behavior “bone-headed” and “narcissistic.”
The play that will see Rudin’s return will be the seventh collaboration between Mantello and Metcalf, who returns to Broadway for the seventh time in 10 years. Rounding out the company from the initial run at Steppenwolf Theatre are John Drea and Meighan Gerachis.
The playwright, a recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant, will be making his Broadway debut. His 2012 play The Whale was adapted into the 2022 film starring Brendan Fraser in an Oscar-winning performance.
The synopsis: “On the remote outskirts of a small Idaho town, a razor-tongued aunt and her long-estranged nephew find themselves suddenly back in each other’s orbit—two lonely souls with a crumbling house to sell and a tangled history to unravel. Bitingly funny and quietly explosive, Little Bear Ridge Road is a sharply etched portrait of two people reaching across emotional galaxies—searching for meaning and fumbling toward connection, even as they fear it might swallow them whole. In this piercing and profound new play, the void is vast, the stars are indifferent, and love—messy, human, and hard-won—might be the only thing tethering us to Earth.”
The design team for Little Bear Ridge Road includes Scott Pask (scenic design), Jessica Pabst (costume design), Heather Gilbert (lighting design), and Mikhail Fiksel (sound design). Little Bear Ridge Road was commissioned by, and its world premiere was presented, at The Steppenwolf Theatre Company under Artistic Directors Glenn Davis and Audrey Francis and Executive Director E. Brooke Flanagan.