Breaking Baz: ‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow’ Stage Play Will Begin Trilogy Planned For London’s West End & Broadway
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EXCLUSIVE: The Stranger Things stage show, an unbelievably brilliant new blueprint for theatricality that premieres in London’s West End tonight, will be the first installment in a trilogy exploring the dark underbelly of Hawkins, Indiana.
Breaking Baz can reveal that parts two and three are set to follow the inaugural play, Stranger Things: The First Shadow, in two- or three-year intervals, according to insiders associated with the production. The stage sequels will launch in London first.
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Meanwhile, there are already plans for Stranger Things: The First Shadow to transfer to Broadway.
None of that’s official yet, of course. Producers and backers will study reviews out on Friday and across the weekend and the box office receipts before green-lighting any further productions.
The Stranger Things play is set in the late 1950s — a time when a young Jim Hopper’s car won’t start, Bob Newby’s sister won’t take his radio show seriously and a new student Henry Creel arrives … as the show synopsis notes, “the shadows of the past have a very long reach.”
The production’s a prequel of sorts to the Netflix streaming drama, and acts as something of a “bridge between Season 4 and Season 5 of the television series,” its director Stephen Daldry told me.
He added that the show “creates the mythology of how all this started,” adding: “We’ve created the mythology.”
The “we” in question are the TV show’s co-creators the Duffer Brothers, His Dark Materials and Harry Potter and The Cursed Child scribe Jack Thorne, Stranger Things writer Kate Trefry and the vivid imaginations of Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Crown, The Hours), co-director Justin Martin (Prima Facie), production designer Miriam Buether, costume designer Brigitte Reiffenstuel, lighting designer Jon Clark and sound artist Paul Arditti.
Then there’s host of visual effects creatives led by Jamie Harrison, Chris Fisher and 59 Productions for a show that marks Netflix’s first foray into the realm of live theater — a move made possible through a partnership with West End and Broadway heavyweight Sonia Friedman Productions. Shawn Levy’s series co-producer 21 Laps is listed as associate producer.
But for all of The First Shadow‘s electrifying stagecraft, there’s a potent, very moving story of a family and a community confronting unknown evil and altered reality underpinning the theatrics.
The show has an extraordinary cast of unknowns and veterans, though the spotlight’s focused mainly on Louis McCartney’s psychically gifted but troubled teenage Henry Creel and Ella Karena William as Hawkins high-schooler Patty Newby.
They’re at the center of the play’s demonic plot, of which I shall reveal… nothing. (Except to note that I jumped outta my seat more than once.)
“I had to learn how to put TV on stage — that’s the crux of it,” Daldry told me when I bumped into him at a preview at the Phoenix Theatre on Charing Cross Road last Saturday night.
“It’s the most expensive London theater production ever,” he boasted, maybe half-jokingly — only to be shot down by Sonia Friedman.
“It’s not the most expensive,” she insisted.
Rather, she told me, ”It’s definitely like nothing else ever staged in theater in terms of the sheer number of creative and technical departments collaborating and working as one, and pushing their own boundaries, to create the effects.”
Friedman added that supporting Daldry’s “inspiring vision” as he and his team crafted the production was “amazing and challenging.”
“What’s remarkable,” Friedman continued, “is his absolute focus on the emotional narrative of those two young kids [Henry and Patty], kids battling their demons. They’re two outsiders finding one another, trying to help one anther. Louis and Ella are extraordinary and I’m so proud of them.”
Friedman observed that box office analysts have studied data revealing Stranger Things has attracted “thousands of people who are coming to the theater for the first time.”
And they were out in force Saturday night lapping up the action on stage and splashing out on merchandise during the interval.
The cast taking bows included Shane Attwooll (Wonder Woman 1984, Legend, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot) as Chief Hopper; Oscar Lloyd (The 47th, Hotel Portofino, 4 O’Clock Club) playing his son, James Hopper Jr.; and Christopher Buckley (David Copperfield, Orphans, Stig of the Dump) playing Newby.
McCartney (Silent Roar, Hope Street, Game of Thrones) makes his stage debut as Creel and veteran actors Michael Jibson (Bodies, The Essex Serpent, Hamilton) and Lauren Ward (Dear Evan Hansen) take on Henry’s parents, Victor and Virginia Creel.
Isabella Pappas (Finding Alice, Villains of Valley View) plays Joyce Maldonaldo, Patrick Vaill (Oklahoma!, Macbeth) is the sinister Dr. Brenner, and Karuna Williams (The Equalizer) plays Patty Newby, with Max Harwood, who starred in the feature film Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, playing student Alan Munster.
Guests attending tonight’s opening featured both Netflix top brass and cast members from the TV version of Stranger Things, a list that included Ted Sarandos, the Duffer brothers, Levy, David Harbour, Matthew Modine and Cara Buono.
Also in attendance: Lily Allen, Hugh Jackman, Lulu, James McAvoy, Justin Martin, Ludvig Andersson,, Corinna Brown, Emma Corrin, Jennifer Garner, Daniel Dae Kim, Tobie Donovan, Kizzie Edgell, Luther Ford, Richard Gadd, Meg Bellamy, Joe Locke, Ed McVey, Ambika Mod, Thomasin McKenzie, Himesh Patel, Jonathan Pryce and Micheal Ward.
Other vital creative credits include original musical composition, orchestration and arrangements by D.J.Walde; choreography by Coral Messam; movement direction by Lynne Page; wigs, hair and make-up design by Campbell Young Associates; and casting by Jessica Ronane and Jim Carnahan, with additional casting by Charlotte Sutton. Dialect coaching is from William Conacher, technical direction is by Gary Beestone, prop supervision is by Mary Halliday, and fight direction is by Kev McCurdy.
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