A charter member of Chicago’s acclaimed Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Metcalf played Mom in the company’s 1982 staging of Sam Shepard’s play about brawling brothers, also starring John Malkovich. The production helped put Steppenwolf — and Metcalf — on the map.

Lanford Wilson’s 1965 play set in a grungy New York City diner captures the lives of its down-and-out denizens. Metcalf first starred in the Steppenwolf production, making her Off-Broadway debut as Darlene, a naive woman in over her head, when it transferred to New York in 1984.

Metcalf won a Theatre World Award and an Obie Award, and her 20-minute monologue was heralded by The New York Times as “one of the year’s most memorable theatrical events.”

Metcalf was busy with Roseanne on TV from 1988-97, but she found time to make her Broadway debut in 1995 in this dark comedy by Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros about a suburban marriage soured by infidelity. She played Elly, a sardonic wife confronting her cheating husband and the complexities of love. Variety described the actress as “ferocious.”

Set in the Oval Office days before a presidential election, David Mamet’s 2008 Broadway comedy featured Metcalf as a speechwriter for the POTUS, played by Nathan Lane. Under Mantello's direction for the first time, Metcalf earned her first Tony Award nomination. The actress got the vote for being “a great foil for Lane's conniving President,” per New York Theatre Guide’s review.

Metcalf played matriarch Kate Jerome in a short-lived revival of Neil Simon’s semi‑autobiographical coming‑of‑age play about a Jewish family in 1930s Brooklyn. The New York Times review praised Metcalf as an “excellent actress of assured technique and probing intelligence.”

Metcalf starred as a brain scientist in her early 50s who’s experiencing a cognitive decline in Sharr White’s shadowy psychological drama off Broadway. Metcalf won an Obie for her work in 2011, and two years later, she earned her second Tony nomination for the Broadway transfer.

The Daily News marveled at Metcalf, noting that “the drama offers a perfect chance to savor a fascinating stage animal in her natural habitat.” The Other Place's ensemble cast included Metcalf's daughter Zoe Perry.

Acting opposite Bruce Willis in 2015, Metcalf notched her third Tony nomination as a hapless writer’s number-one fan — and worst enemy — in William Goldman’s dramatization of Stephen King’s same-named novel, also adapted into an Oscar-winning movie starring Kathy Bates and James Caan.

“Metcalf gives a performance that is strong enough to drag Mr. Willis and the entire set along with her,” raved New York Theatre Guide's critic.

Metcalf starred as Nora in Lucas Hnath’s provocative comedy that imagined the fallout after Henrik Ibsen’s iconic heroine slammed the door on her life. Set decades after Nora’s dramatic exit in the 1879 classic A Doll's House, the Ibsen "sequel" sees her return to confront the societal and familial consequences. The “beyond brilliant” Metcalf, as described on New York Theatre Guide, won the 2017 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.

Because, really, one Tony Award on a shelf looks so lonely. Metcalf’s canny performance in 2018 in Edward Albee’s reflective, poignant portrait of three stages of a woman’s life earned her the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress. Glenda Jackson, who won a Best Actress Tony for her star turn, and Alison Pill made up the other two-thirds of Mantello’s stellar triangle.

The title pretty much says it. Metcalf, who snagged Tony nod number six in 2019, portrayed Hillary Clinton opposite John Lithgow as Bill in Hnath’s play directed by Mantello. This alternate‑universe drama follows a struggling 2008 campaign. New York Theatre Guide's critic said, "Metcalf, who is fast turning into Broadway royalty with a now annual appearance there [...] is alternately defiant and insecure."

Her nomination for Hillary and Clinton made her the first performer to ever get four Tony nods in a row. (Only Kara Young, a fellow two-time winner as of 2025, has done so since.)

Metcalf as Edward Albee’s caustic, witty, and wounded Martha? Yes, please! Only a few fortunate theatregoers got to see Metcalf spar with onstage spouse Rupert Everett in a turbulent night of psychological games. Director Mantello’s Broadway revival at the Booth Theatre began March 3, 2020, and closed March 11 due to the pandemic, never officially opening.

The chaotic Conner household on Roseanne was nothing compared to the jump scares and more that go down at the remote creepy cabin in Levi Holloway’s play Grey House, which premiered on Broadway in 2023. Metcalf played Raleigh, the enigmatic caretaker of the eerie resident children she described as willful creatures who are always hungry. Be afraid; be very afraid.

Idaho, Hunter’s home state, is the dramatic lens through which the playwright sees his theatrical world. Metcalf plays Sarah, and Tony nominee Micah Stock (It’s Only a Play) is her estranged nephew Ethan, whose father has just died. As they sort out the aftermath, the two grasp at a connection.

Hunter wrote the show with Metcalf in mind, and for the world-premiere run with Steppenwolf in 2024, the Chicago Sun-Times called Metcalf "unsurprisingly magnificent.”

Metcalf is having a busy — and versatile — 2025-26 season, jumping straight from the new play Little Bear in the fall to Arthur Miller's celebrated classic in the spring. Nathan Lane plays her husband, the title salesman who can never achieve his American dream, and Christopher Abbott and Ben Ahlers play their sons. With Death of a Salesman, Metcalf proves her theatre career is more alive than ever.

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