Duffer Brothers and ‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow’ Team Tease Henry Creel Origins in Stage Play
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Stranger Things: The First Shadow — the stage play based on the hit Netflix series — promises to be a “cinematic” experience that lays the groundwork for the series biggest villain, Henry Creel.
In a new three-minute featurette released Monday for the streamer’s annual “Stranger Things Day” (the annual event marks the day when Will Beyers, in 1983, went missing in Hawkins, Indiana), Stranger Things co-creators Matt and Ross Duffer were joined by the production’s creative team and cast, including director Stephen Daldry, as they teased what fans can expect out of the upcoming live stage show.
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According to Matt, the show came about after hearing “Stephen Daldry was interested in doing a play — he’s a director of all these movies and he’s an incredibly accomplished theater director.”
Ross recalled, “We were in the middle of breaking season four with our writers. We started going, ‘OK, well, there’s definitely more story to tell here. It really is a story exploring when Henry Creel first moved into Hawkins, and like every Stranger Things story, there’s a new really important character, which in this case is Patty Newby.”
Actress Ella Karuna Williams is set to play Newby, who teases the 1959-set prequel, which will center around the younger versions of series characters Joyce (played by Winona Ryder), Hopper (David Harbour), Bob (Sean Astin) and Henry (the younger version of Jamie Campbell Bower’s Vecna, played by Raphael Luce) “trying to figure out their lives in high school.” Writer Kate Trefry added that “the main thrust of the story is Pattie and her little budding romance with Henry.”
“It’s also the origin story of how Henry Creel became number one (aka “001”),” said producer Sonia Freedman.
Stranger Things: The First Shadow is set to begin previews Nov. 17 at the Phoenix Theatre in London’s West End, with the official opening night scheduled for Dec. 14. Written by Trefry, directed by Stephen Daldry with co-director Justin Martin, the story is set 27 years before the events of Stranger Things, with the arrival of the Creel family looking for a fresh start in Hawkins, Indiana.
Alongside their arrival, “Young Jim Hopper’s car won’t start, Bob Newby’s sister won’t take his radio show seriously and Joyce Maldonado just wants to graduate and get the hell out of town,” according to the play’s description.
The remainder of the video teased how the show’s “dream team” is readying for the show’s West End debut, where they’ll reveal the origins of the Upside Down in what is promised to be a groundbreaking play that not only brings horror to the stage but is chock-full of Stranger Things Easter eggs.
“There are a lot of monsters. There a lot of blood and gut effects,” said Jamie Harrison, who works on First Shadow‘s visual effects and serves as its co-illusion designer. “There are a lot of vanishes and appearances and lots of other things that I’m not going to tell you about that because you don’t want to spoil the surprise for the audience.”
In a new joint statement to Tudum, the Duffer Brothers expressed their delight about expanding their hit universe beyond the TV series, calling it “a thrilling experience” and “a joyous process of discovery” bolstered by the chance to collaborate “with this incredible team, led by the inspiring Stephen Daldry.
“Bringing this new Stranger Things story to the stage, with live audiences, is a prospect that we find enormously exciting, and we are delighted that a city with such a rich theater culture as London will receive the world premiere of our new story,” they added.
The First Shadow stars Shane Attwooll, Christopher Buckley, Michael Jibson, Oscar Lloyd, Louis McCartney, Isabella Pappas, Patrick Vaill, Lauren Ward and Ella Karuna Williams. The play is produced by Netflix and Sonia Friedman Productions, with the Duffer Brothers acting as creative producers alongside 21 Laps Entertainment as associate producer.
Stranger Things: The First Shadow begins previews Nov. 17 at the Phoenix Theatre in London’s West End, before opening on Dec. 14.
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