Everything We Know About 'Stranger Things' Prequel 'The First Shadow'

Season 5 of Stranger Things is still a long way away, with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes postponing the fifth and final installment of the nostalgia-infused horror adventure series. But series creators Matt and Ross Duffer have already promised that there will be "exciting new stories" set in the ever-expanding world of Hawkins, Indiana and the Upside Down which will follow other characters after we have said goodbye to Eleven, Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, Max, Nancy and Steve.

And we now know that a prequel, set almost 30 years before the main events of the show, is happening. Stranger Things: The First Shadow will explore the early lives of several key figures from the show, including Hopper (David Harbour), Joyce (Winona Ryder), Bob (Sean Astin) and Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine) as well as the dark origins of Henry Creel (Jamie Campbell Bower), the Season 4 villain who would eventually come to be known as Vecna.

But this new chapter will take a vastly different form to the Eighties-based Netflix original, and take the franchise to a whole new medium.

Stranger Things: The First Shadow will be a stage play.

Streaming giant Netflix announced in 2022 that it would be making its first venture into the arena of live theater with a Stranger Things production. The First Shadow was written by Kate Trefry, a writer and producer on Stranger Things who also penned the Netflix horror movie Fear Street Part Three: 1666.

The show will be directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker and producer Stephen Daldry—best known for his films The Hours and Billy Elliot, as well as his critically acclaimed stage production of The Inheritance— and co-directed by Olivier Award winner Justin Martin.

Who is in the cast?

Given that the prequel is set 30 years earlier and focus on the characters' much younger selves, nobody from the series will be reprising their roles. Instead, a talented new line-up have been cast.

Stranger Things: The First Shadow will star Shane Attwooll, Christopher Buckley, Michael Jibson, Oscar Lloyd, Louis McCartney, Isabella Pappas, Patrick Vaill, Lauren Ward and Ella Karuna Williams.

"It's a joy to discover the world of Stranger Things: The First Shadow with our ferociously talented cast and watch the alchemy amongst our entire company grow as we together explore this new play,” Daldry and Martin have stated. "They’re an extraordinarily gifted group of actors, and we can’t wait to share this origin story with audiences."

What is Stranger Things: The First Shadow about?

The play's official synopsis reads:

"Hawkins, 1959: a regular town with regular worries. Young Jim Hopper’s (Lloyd) car won’t start, Bob Newby’s (Buckley) sister (Williams) won’t take his radio show seriously and Joyce Maldonado (Pappas) just wants to graduate and get the hell out of town. When new student Henry Creel (McCartney) arrives, his family finds that a fresh start isn’t so easy … and the shadows of the past have a very long reach."

While The First Shadow will ostensibly tell its own self-contained story within the wider universe of Stranger Things, the play will also help to set up the events of Season 5. Writer Kate Trefry has confirmed that elements of the stage show will tie into future episodes, and the final season will reference the play.

"There are referential sequences and imagery and callbacks and flashbacks to the events of the play in Stranger Things season 5 that will still make sense to you if you don’t see the play, but you’ll have a deeper understanding of them if you do," she said. "It's in conversation with the seasons prior and the season to come. It really informs everything that you have seen and will see."

When will the show open?

Previews for Stranger Things: The First Shadow will begin at The Phoenix Theater on the West End in London on November 17. The play's official opening date is December 14.

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