Samuel D. Hunter has never truly left home. Though he now lives in New York with his husband and daughter, the playwright grew up in Moscow, Idaho, and all of his plays are set in the Midwest—such as his play The Whale (which was adapted into a 2022 Oscar-winning film with Brendan Fraser), Clarkston (which just got a West End production starring Joe Locke), and now, his newest work: Little Bear Ridge Road, in performances at Broadway’s Booth Theatre starring Laurie Metcalf.
For Hunter, home remains fertile emotional and narrative territory: “I can very easily trace my family back to the homesteaders in my hometown—like my great, great grandfather, who was the first postmaster in my hometown. He fought in the Civil War for Ohio, I think, and then homesteaded in Idaho after that, in the late 1860s. Idaho wasn’t even a state then,” explains Hunter, leaning forward in contemplation. “This is land that’s been occupied for thousands and thousands of years. And so, it's got this incredibly complicated, dark history to it that I think I'm constantly wrestling with in the plays. There's a lot of theatre there.”
Unlike New York City, where the lights and smog obfuscate the night sky—and millions of people make it impossible to truly be alone—a place like Idaho is nothing but wide-open expanse and big dark skies, a place where you can go days without seeing another human. It’s somewhere to go if you want to feel truly alone. In a place like that, finding and maintaining human connection takes immense effort. That’s the dramatic heft of Little Bear Ridge Road, which follows a man named Ethan (played on Broadway by Micah Stock), who comes back to Idaho to settle his deceased father’s affairs—and is reunited with his estranged aunt Sarah (played by Metcalf). Despite memories of past hurt, Ethan can’t help but stay on Little Bear Ridge Road to care for the isolated Sarah. As Hunter notes: “They both save each other. That doesn't mean that both of them ride off into the sunset and happiness and riches for the rest of their lives. But they do both save each other.”
Though Hunter puts personal details into his plays (his own father, still alive, lives on the real-life Little Bear Ridge Road), his work isn’t autobiographical. Instead, he’s more interested in character studies. And what better actor to inspire a memorable character than Laurie Metcalf? Hunter first met her and director Joe Mantello in the lobby of Off-Broadway’s Signature Theatre in 2023 (which regularly produces Hunter’s play). They told him that they wanted to do a show with Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, and asked if he would write something. He accepted the offer and four months later, he had a first draft.
Metcalf proved an easy inspiration, says Hunter: “Even before all this, if somebody was like, ‘What actor would you want to write a play for?,’ I probably would have said Laurie Metcalf. That probably would have been my first voice. Because her blend of tragedy and comedy, living right next to one another is, like, entirely in the register of what I try to do with my plays. Amidst the darkest tragedy, there is still laughter, and she is capable of that so beautifully.”
Little Bear Ridge Road premiered last year at Steppenwolf, to critical acclaim and healthy ticket sales. That was no surprise—Hunter’s plays have been consistently among the most-produced in America, lauded for their probing, intimate exploration of regular people trying to find meaning in their lives. Hunter’s characters live humble lives—they’re grocery clerks, English teachers, office workers, regular people who are usually ignored by popular American entertainment, which is notoriously obsessed with the lifestyle of the rich and unhappy. Hunter even received a MacArthur “genius” grant in 2014, for “crafting quietly captivating dramas that explore the human capacity for empathy and confront the socially isolating aspects of contemporary life across the American landscape”—it came with $625,000.
But though Hunter shows regularly sell out at Off-Broadway and regional theatres—and he has received almost every major award for playwriting in America (including the Obie, the Lucille Lortel, the Drama Desk)—Broadway has always proved elusive. Hunter maintained that Broadway had never been his goal, having been disappointed in the past by what he’s classified as “lazy producing.”
Even on the day he spoke to Playbill, just days before first performances of Little Bear Ridge Road, Hunter betrayed no hint of nervousness—this may be his Broadway debut, but he wasn’t changing himself or his play now that it’s in a bigger theatre. He didn’t even do any rewrites for Broadway. Instead, he was surveying it all with bemusement, saying, “I feel like my plays are not plays that are going to scream in your face or grab you by the collar with plot gymnastics or speed or flash. They're plays that take their time. They’re plays that are very plain spoken. And I think that makes less adventurous producers nervous.” By way of example, Hunter cites The Whale, which is set entirely in an apartment living room; the emotional catharsis is reached through a young girl reading an essay to her father.
Notes Hunter: “That’s not bombastic. That’s not, like, rain on stage and fire! It's not the normal tropes of what makes something ‘big enough’ to fit into a Broadway theatre. And I think, [as a producer] you have to have faith in the plays being emotionally big enough to fill a large space.”
So he didn’t think much of it when Broadway producers, attracted by Mantello and Metcalf, came to Chicago last year to see Little Bear Ridge Road. And the only person who was willing to put money into a Broadway transfer was Scott Rudin, who had been trying to find an opening to return to Broadway; Rudin left the industry in 2022 following allegations of abuse of his assistants. In a sign of how delicate the situation is, Steppenwolf (who produced Purpose on Broadway to Tony-winning effect) decided to not produce Little Bear Ridge Road.
Hunter did not know Rudin prior to Ridge Road and has only spoken positively of the producer, citing Metcalf and Mantello’s trust in Rudin. “He’s just been really just lovely and focused on the work … I remember him saying that he really believes the play can punch above its weight. And that's my hope, too.” When asked if he is worried that Rudin’s name might overshadow his own Broadway debut, Hunter gives a confident no. His prediction has been proven correct as the play has been selling well and critically acclaimed.
It’s also put to bed any concerns that Hunter's work is too small for Broadway, that audiences will be turned off by its melancholy, its quietness and lack of (verbal and literal) fireworks. Perhaps Broadway audiences can be challenged and can watch stories where change comes slowly and the ending isn’t wrapped up in a neat bow with a thesis statement.
When asked to consider the themes of his work, Hunter speaks with the assurance of an artist who had nothing to prove; he knows the journey he wants to take audiences on, and that the destination will have been worth the trip.
“I'm not interested in false hope. I think [my] plays all have hope. I think they all have positivity and optimism. But I think the whole thing about it is, it's hard won. Because I think hope, especially now, is really, really difficult. I think cynicism is easy and false hope is easy. Earning the truth of it is the harder task.” He pauses, then adds with a small smile, “Maybe I'm the opposite of Sartre—if Sartre is like, ‘Hell is other people.’ I'm like, ‘grace is other people.’ I think the fundamental project of the plays is like finding hope and optimism within each other.”
The Booth Theatre
Company of Little Bear Ridge Road
Samuel D. Hunter and Laurie Metcalf
John Drea, Laurie Metcalf, Samuel D. Hunter, and Micah Stock
Samuel D. Hunter
Micah Stock
Laurie Metcalf, Samuel D. Hunter, and Joe Mantello
Meighan Gerachis, John Drea, and Laurie Metcalf
Meighan Gerachis, John Drea, Laurie Metcalf, and Micah Stock
Joe Mantello
