LITTLE BEAR RIDGE ROAD Reviews

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 10/30/25 at 7:53pm

10pm review drop.

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/30/25 at 10:00pm

NY Stage Review

Little Bear Ridge Road: Destination Uncertain

By Michael Sommers

★★★★☆ Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock deliver poignant performances in Samuel D. Hunter’s quietly lovely drama

https://nystagereview.com/2025/10/30/little-bear-ridge-road-destination-uncertain

"Of course Metcalf is celebrated for depicting working-class women, so Sarah is not a far stretch for her artistry, but the actress infuses this flinty individual with a sense of wry awareness—and underlying kindness—that assuages her brusque manner. Stock, previously seen on Broadway in comedic roles in revivals of The Front Page and It’s Only a Play, is believable as the depressed, aimless Ethan who gradually, fumblingly begins to emerge from his funk. The contrast between Metcalf’s crisp, dry Sarah and Stock’s glum, slobbery Ethan is striking, and the actors’ expressive body language is eloquent."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/30/25 at 10:01pm

NYT Critic's Pick from Laura Collins-Hughes

Critic’s Pick

Laurie Metcalf Is Riveting in ‘Little Bear Ridge Road’

The playwright Samuel D. Hunter makes his Broadway debut with an addition to his Idaho oeuvre, set during the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/theater/little-bear-ridge-road-review-metcalf.html

Hunter, a prolific Off Broadway playwright with an oeuvre of works set in Idaho (“A Case for the Existence of God,” “Grangeville” ), is making his Broadway debut with “Little Bear Ridge Road,” which had its premiere last year at Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago. Its transfer declares the Broadway resurrection of the exiled-for-a-while producer Scott Rudin. (Allegations of bullying in 2021 led to widespread denunciations.) And honestly? Everything about this impeccable production, presented by Rudin and the media mogul Barry Diller, exudes the nearly flawless taste that Rudin is famous for.

Updated On: 10/30/25 at 10:01 PM

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/30/25 at 10:05pm

NY Stage Review 2

Little Bear Ridge Road: Small Lives, Writ Large

By Frank Scheck

October 30, 2025

★★★★★ Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock star in Samuel D. Hunter's acclaimed drama, previously seen at Steppenwolf Theatre Company

https://nystagereview.com/2025/10/30/little-bear-ridge-road-small-lives-writ-large

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/30/25 at 10:07pm

Vulture

You Won’t Take Your Eyes Off Laurie Metcalf in Little Bear Ridge Road

https://www.vulture.com/article/theater-review-samuel-hunter-laurie-metcalf-little-bear-ridge-road.html

"Hunter stretches, too, to weld the play’s interest in the act of watching television to stargazing. That occupies (as long as we’re thinking in TV terms) a B-plot in which Ethan ends up flirting with a local astrophysicist played by John Drea. (They meet on an app, though you would better understand the characters’ expectations if it specified whether it’s akin to Tinder or more like Sniffies.) Their budding romance contains echoes of other Hunter plays—there’s a fight about money very much like one in Clarkston, and the feeling of a relationship pulled taut by one partner’s stasis, à la Grangeville—yet I found it difficult to connect to. Stock and Drea are charming together, and their flirtation in Mantello’s direction feels like a cozy web comic, but you keep waiting for Hunter to plunge the characters into something deeper than a fight over whether to leave town for a Ph.D. program or a rumination of how looking out at the night sky makes you feel small. Mostly, you’re just waiting for Laurie Metcalf to come back onstage."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/30/25 at 10:08pm

Theatermania

Review: Little Bear Ridge Road, Samuel D. Hunter’s Must-See Broadway Debut

Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock return to Broadway in a new play by Samuel D. Hunter.

https://www.theatermania.com/news/review-little-bear-ridge-road-samuel-d-hunters-must-see-broadway-debut_1809721

"Little Bear Ridge Road is a quietly triumphant debut for Hunter, an American playwright who sees the country we truly inhabit, rather than the one we like to imagine we do."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/30/25 at 10:09pm

3 1/2 from NYP

‘Little Bear Ridge Road’ review: Laurie Metcalf bares her soul in moving Broadway play

https://nypost.com/2025/10/30/entertainment/little-bear-ridge-road-review-laurie-metcalf-bares-her-soul-in-moving-broadway-play

 

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/30/25 at 10:10pm

Hollywood Reporter

‘Little Bear Ridge Road’ Theater Review: Laurie Metcalf Is in Blazing Form and Micah Stock a Revelation in Samuel D. Hunter’s Jewel of a Play

The actors are dueling forces as a semi-estranged aunt and nephew in small-town Idaho in Joe Mantello’s production, brought to Broadway by Scott Rudin and Barry Diller.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/arts/little-bear-ridge-road-review-laurie-metcalf-broadway-1236414531

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/30/25 at 10:12pm

Variety

‘Little Bear Ridge Road’ Review: Laurie Metcalf Shines in a Flawed but Fascinating COVID Story

https://variety.com/2025/legit/reviews/little-bear-ridge-road-laurie-metcalf-review-1236562382

"there are elements here that don’t quite gel. Hunter, in writing a protagonist not dissimilar from ones he has written in the past, uses at first a sort of shorthand — Ethan is unhappy because, well, what’s to be happy about? — but as details of Ethan’s life accrue, elements (including and especially his life in Seattle) strain credulity. Ethan is, we are told, dreaming of becoming a writer, and yet his mien never struck this viewer as particularly writerly or reflective: Stock gives a performance that is emphatic to a fault. Every word he utters is capitalized."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/30/25 at 10:14pm

Daily Beast

A Towering Laurie Metcalf Unsettles—and Dazzles—in ‘Little Bear Ridge’

TONY ALERT!

“Little Bear Ridge” not only boasts a Tony-worthy Laurie Metcalf turn. It’s scandal-ridden producer Scott Rudin’s big swing at an industry comeback.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/review-a-towering-laurie-metcalf-unsettlesand-dazzlesin-little-bear-ridge

 

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/30/25 at 10:16pm

The Wrap

‘Little Bear Ridge Road’ Broadway Review: Laurie Metcalf Is Our Greatest Curmudgeon Who Delights

Samuel D. Hunter’s new play enthralls with its wise-cracking dialogue, but lags when it turns serious

https://www.thewrap.com/little-bear-ridge-road-broadway-review-laurie-metcalf-micah-stock

"If a self-professed loser like Ethan, who’s a failed writer and makes a habit of showing off his portly gut, can attract not only a corporate lawyer but a guy who is studying to be an astrophysicist, why is anyone living anywhere but the country’s northwest, where, according to “Little Bear Ridge Road,” anyone can score? Maybe Hunter made this featured character a future astrophysicist because it allows James to deliver very deep and equally dull statements about the cosmos, in particular, Orion’s Belt. Unfortunately, all this humorless talk about the stars is a lot less interesting than anything Ethan and Sarah say to lacerate each other. Suddenly, where is the Mantello of the play’s first third? Why let this scene turn pathetically sweet?

The Orion’s Belt comments prefigure all sorts of big discussions to come about cancer and meth addiction and child abuse. They are the same tropes that other, lesser playwrights stick in their plays to give them meaning. Myself, I was happier when “Little Bear Ridge Road” wasn’t pretending to be anything more than a hilarious comedy about yet another dysfunctional family."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/30/25 at 10:18pm

TimeOut

Review: Little Bear Ridge Road

5 out of 5 stars

Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock star in Samuel D. Hunter's gorgeous new play

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/little-bear-ridge-road-broadway-review-laurie-metcalf-micah-stock-samuel-hunter

"This production benefits from stars of its own. Metcalf has dominated the Broadway stage for more than a decade, and she continues to astonish; her masterful timing delivers all the comedy that is built into Sarah—a snapping turtle with a manner so brusque she doesn’t even say goodbye at the end of phone calls—even as she conveys the hurt and affection beneath her emotional reticence. And Stock holds his own in an even trickier role, sustaining our sympathy though hairline cracks in his reflexive crabbiness."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/30/25 at 10:20pm

Washington Post

You want to see Laurie Metcalf playing the world’s most abrasive aunt

“Little Bear Ridge Road” on Broadway is a subtly wrenching drama powered by Metcalf’s stunning performance.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater/2025/10/30/little-bear-ridge-road-broadway-review/

"The production, which originated at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company last year, is foremost a stunning vehicle for Laurie Metcalf, unrivaled as an avatar for working-class grit and staggeringly good here. It also marks a return to Broadway for producer Scott Rudin, who stepped away from the business in April 2021 following an investigation of his alleged bullying and abusive behavior. Mantello and Metcalf are both frequent collaborators of Rudin’s (co-producing here with Barry Diller), and “Little Bear Ridge Road” is the sort of polished, serious drama he’s known for. Metcalf is so thrillingly alive and persuasive in the part that you can’t help but lean into the uneasiness suspended in the air, onstage and off."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/30/25 at 10:22pm

Chicago Tribune

Review: In ‘Little Bear Ridge Road’ on Broadway, Laurie Metcalf shows us a woman so alone on that couch

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/30/review-little-bear-ridge-road-broadway/

"Even by Metcalf’s lofty standards, this is one stunner of a performance.

I’ve seen it twice now, and it has only deepened. At one point, a moment I don’t want to spoil with more detail, Sarah’s pain gets vocally manifest in a great, guttural howl, or it would if Sarah could sufficiently unblock her voice.

Metcalf actually is one of the few great American actors who can show you both of these things at once: the feelings her character can express and those she cannot. If you are a student of how actors illuminate subtext while simultaneously honoring how trapped some Americans get in repressed feelings, it’s a revelation. Truly.  And Stock, who puts everything this young actor has into the ring with this heavyweight prize-fighter, rises to meet Metcalf at every moment he can."

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 10/30/25 at 10:22pm

Say hello to Tony nomination #7, Laurie Metcalf. 

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 10/30/25 at 10:50pm

DTLI Consensus: Laurie Metcalf is a revelation in Samuel D. Hunter's quiet yet mighty Broadway debut play about human connection. 

12 positive (including the NYT), 3 mixed.

https://didtheylikeit.com/shows/little-bear-ridge-road/

[UWS10023]

Posted: 10/31/25 at 12:35am

Well deserved! Congrats to all!

[MezzA101]

Posted: 10/31/25 at 8:15am

MemorableUserName said: "NYT Critic's Pick from Laura Collins-Hughes

Critic’s Pick

Laurie Metcalf Is Riveting in ‘Little Bear Ridge Road’

The playwright Samuel D. Hunter makes his Broadway debut with an addition to his Idaho oeuvre, set during the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/theater/little-bear-ridge-road-review-metcalf.html

Hunter, a prolific Off Broadway playwright with an oeuvre of works set in Idaho (“A Case for the Existence of God,” “Grangeville” ), is making his Broadway debut with “Little Bear Ridge Road,” which had its premiere last year at Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago. Its transfer declares the Broadway resurrection of the exiled-for-a-while producer Scott Rudin. (Allegations of bullying in 2021 led to widespread denunciations.) And honestly? Everything about this impeccable production, presented by Rudin and the media mogul Barry Diller, exudes the nearly flawless taste that Rudin is famous for."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/theater/little-bear-ridge-road-review-metcalf.html?unlocked_article_code=1.xk8.VSaF.QhJ83g8-I2BP&smid=nytcore-android-share

[quizking101]

Posted: 10/31/25 at 9:14am

EDSOSLO858 said: "Say hello to Tony nomination #7, Laurie Metcalf."

I know it’s a hot year for plays and play revivals, but if Metcalf doesn’t get a nomination for this, I will RIOT. She’s currently in a potential pool with Lesley Manville, Taraji P. Henson, Ayo Edibiri, Carrie Coon, June Squibb, Rose Byrne, and Kelli O’ Hara.

[Fordham2015]

Posted: 10/31/25 at 9:18am

quizking101 said: "EDSOSLO858 said: "Say hello to Tony nomination #7, Laurie Metcalf."

I know it’s a hot year for plays and play revivals, but if Metcalf doesn’t get a nomination for this, I will RIOT. She’s currently in a potential pool with Lesley Manville, Taraji P. Henson, Ayo Edibiri, Carrie Coon, June Squibb, Rose Byrne, and Kelli O’ Hara."

And Jean Smart (the play wasn't great, but she was)