The Captivating “Little Bear Ridge Road” Will Close Early on Broadway — A Quiet Loss for the Season – front mezz junkies, Theater News

Frontmezzjunkies reports: Little Bear Ridge Road Will Close Early on Broadway

By Ross

I wrote in my review of Little Bear Ridge Road that it was “a quietly brutal and deeply humane theatrical experience,” a play whose spare staging and rugged emotional heart quietly cut deeper than many louder, flashier productions this season. So it stings to report that Samuel D. Hunter’s beautiful, aching drama will take its final bow at Broadway’s Booth Theatre on December 21, two months earlier than originally scheduled. What had been a run set to continue through February 15, 2026, is now sadly truncated, and the theatre community and theatregoers, hungry for work that feels genuine, will feel the loss.

Little Bear Ridge Road began previews on October 7 and opened on October 30, helmed by Tony winner Joe Mantello and reuniting much of the creative team from its Steppenwolf Theatre premiere: scenic designer Scott Pask, costume designer Jessica Pabst, lighting designer Heather Gilbert, and sound designer Mikhail Fiksel. The returning cast, comprising Laurie Metcalf as Sarah, Micah Stock as Ethan, John Drea as James, and Meighan Gerachis as Paulette, delivered performances of astonishing vulnerability and integrity, making the play’s quiet rhythms resonate long after the lights faded.

In my review, I wrote that the play’s “bleak humor and profound tenderness” make it a “sharply etched portrait of fear, longing, and the stubborn hope that we might still reach one another across the chasms of solitude.” That portrait didn’t feel small; it felt necessary. At a moment when the Broadway season can sometimes feel dominated by spectacle and familiar IP, Little Bear Ridge Road stood out for the way it insisted on feeling, on the grit of memory, family, and the staggering work of connection. To see its life on Broadway cut short feels like a cultural retreat from the very stories we most need to witness in person.

This production also marked a notable, if controversial, return to Broadway for producer Scott Rudin, whose absence from the industry had been widely discussed since 2021 in the wake of reports about his abusive behavior. Little Bear Ridge Road was Rudin’s first official producing step back onto the Broadway boards alongside Barry Diller, with more projects reportedly in the wings; a revival of Death of a Salesman starring Metcalf and Nathan Lane is already announced for next spring. Whether or not audiences make peace with the conditions of Rudin’s return, the decision to shorten this play’s run feels like a missed opportunity to prove, in the most public of spaces, that work of quiet emotional power can not only belong on Broadway but can thrive there.

For now, the theatrical world will have to hold tight to the memory of performances that felt true, tender, and unsettlingly alive, and hope that this production’s brief Broadway tenure still echoes in the minds of those who saw it. Little Bear Ridge Road was one of the season’s most affecting works, and closing it early feels like losing a voice we still needed to hear.