According to Gold Derby’s current predictions, Laurie Metcalf is expected to receive a Best Featured Actress in a Play nomination for Death of a Salesman at this year’s Tonys. She’s also a dark-horse contender for a Best Actress in a Play bid for Little Bear Ridge Road. If both pan out, she would become just the seventh actor in history to have scored Tony nods in two categories for two different roles in the same year.
Last fall, Metcalf starred in Samuel D. Hunter’s play Little Bear Ridge Road. She played Sarah Fernsby, a woman who reunites with her estranged nephew, Ethan (Micah Stock), in Idaho at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to settle the estate of her deceased brother. While emotionally distant, the two of them eventually find themselves drawn to care for each other.
The production may not have lasted long due to poor ticket sales, but it was well-regarded by critics. Several of them touted Metcalf’s performance as Tony-worthy. Laura Collins-Hughes (The New York Times) described the actress as “riveting.” Chris Jones (New York Daily News) found Metcalf’s work to be “stellar.” Naveen Kumar (The Washington Post) felt she was “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.”
In the recently opened sixth Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s 1949 classic, Metcalf plays Linda Loman. Her husband is Willy (Nathan Lane), a traveling salesman with decades of experience who endures a pay cut and a firing throughout the story. Linda breaks down as she confides in her two adult sons about Willy’s disintegration and reveals he has attempted suicide before.
Reviewers singled out Metcalf’s Tony-worthy work in Death of a Salesman. Helen Shaw (The New York Times) said she gave “a great performance that makes you hear familiar lines anew.” Greg Evans (Deadline) found her to be “a marvel,” crafting “a fully developed character with an inner life.” Dalton Ross (Entertainment Weekly) felt that she was “a force of helpless nature in the role.”
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The character of Linda Loman previously earned Elizabeth Franz a Tony win for the 1999 revival starring Brian Dennehy as well as a bid for Linda Emond in the 2012 revival starring Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Metcalf is currently the frontrunner to receive a nom for Best Featured Actress in a Play with a 97% chance. The rest of the predicted lineup includes Betsy Aidem (Liberation), June Squibb (Marjorie Prime), Cynthia Nixon (Marjorie Prime), and Kara Young (Proof).
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For Best Actress in a Play, Metcalf is currently in sixth place for Little Bear Ridge Road, right outside of the predicted lineup. Expected to make the cut are Lesley Manville (Oedipus), Carrie Coon (Bug), Susannah Flood (Liberation), Ayo Edebiri (Proof), and Rose Byrne (Fallen Angels).
Since receiving her first nom in 2008 for November, Metcalf has been recognized for most of her subsequent main stem appearances. As of now, the only exceptions are Brighton Beach Memoirs in 2010, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (which closed during previews due to COVID-19) in 2020, and Grey House in 2024.
These six actors have managed to be Tony-nominated in two categories for two different roles in the same year:
- Amanda Plummer — A Taste of Honey and Agnes of God (won) in 1982
- Dana Ivey — Heartbreak House and Sunday in the Park with George in 1984
- Kate Burton — Hedda Gabler and The Elephant Man in 2002
- Jan Maxwell — The Royal Family and Lend Me a Tenor in 2010
- Mark Rylance — Richard III and Twelfth Night (won) in 2014
- Jeremy Pope — Choir Boy and Ain’t Too Proud in 2019
Metcalf prevailed at the Tonys two years in a row for A Doll’s House, Part Two in 2017 and Three Tall Women in 2018. She received four additional bids for the aforementioned November, The Other Place in 2013, Misery in 2016, and Hillary and Clinton in 2019. If she pulls off two nominations this year, it’d be further evidence of how beloved she is by her peers.
