Stranger Things: The First Shadow

Stranger Things: The First Shadow is a new play and a prequel to Stranger Things, the Netflix series created by the Duffer Brothers. Set in 1959, 24 years before the events of the show, it follows Henry Creel as a teenager, long before he turns into Vecna, the villain viewers know from the series. Along the way it introduces younger versions of several familiar Hawkins faces, including Joyce, Jim Hopper and Bob Newby, as students at the local high school.

Kate Trefry wrote the play from an original story she developed with the Duffer Brothers and Jack Thorne. Stephen Daldry directs, with Justin Martin as co-director, and Netflix produces with Sonia Friedman Productions. This is a play rather than a musical, though it comes with an original score by D.J. Walde.

The play began in London's West End in 2023, and a Broadway production followed at the Marquis Theatre in 2025. On Broadway it won three Tony Awards for design and a Special Tony Award for its illusions and technical effects. The producers bill it as a stand-alone adventure, so you can follow it without having watched the series, although fans will catch plenty of links.

A prologue goes back to 1943 and a secret US Navy experiment aboard the USS Eldridge. The goal is to make the ship invisible, and it goes badly wrong: the ship ends up in a dark dimension called the Abyss, where creatures kill most of the crew.

The main story begins in 1959 in Hawkins, Indiana. The Creel family, Victor and Virginia with their teenage son Henry and his younger sister Alice, has just moved to town hoping to start over. Henry has psychokinetic powers he fears may be evil, and at Hawkins High School he is the troubled new kid who cannot find a place to fit.

He finds an ally in Patty Newby, the principal's daughter and an outsider herself. Patty is a character created for the play; she is Bob Newby's sister. With her help, Henry comes to see his power as something he can master rather than something evil, and their friendship grows into a romance.

Hawkins High has its own small dramas. Joyce Maldonado, the girl who will grow up to be Joyce Byers, wants to stage Dark of the Moon as the school play and to leave town once she graduates. Other students include Bob Newby, who hosts a radio show, and James Hopper, Jr., the teenage Jim Hopper.

Then animals around town begin turning up dead, Claudia Yount's cat among them, and Bob, Joyce and Jim set out to learn why. Henry, meanwhile, is haunted by a shadowy presence and by visions of a monster, and he is terrified that it will make him hurt Patty. The central mystery is whether Henry himself has anything to do with what is happening in Hawkins.

The play is laid out in two acts, "Chapter One: The Girl from Nowhere" and "Chapter Two: Captain Midnight," framed by the prologue and an epilogue. The Duffer Brothers would rather audiences discover the story for themselves, so this guide stops at the setup.

Kate Trefry's script fills in Henry Creel's past, and the Duffer Brothers have described the play as canon, part of the official Stranger Things story. It is also linked to the fifth and final season of the series.

The script works on two levels at once. On the surface it is a small-town high school story about outsiders, a school play and a teenage romance. Underneath runs a science-fiction plot that reaches back to a secret Navy experiment and turns on psychic power and a dark presence that will not leave Henry alone.

Several characters are younger versions of people from the series. Karen Childress and Claudia Yount are reported to be the young Karen Wheeler and the future Claudia Henderson, Dustin's mother, and Dr. Brenner is Martin Brenner, the Hawkins Lab scientist of the series. Other family names from the show turn up in the character list too, among them Wheeler, Henderson, Sinclair and Byers.

D.J. Walde is credited not only with the original composition but also with the orchestrations, arrangements and music supervision.

Every award the production has won in New York went to its design and technical work. The scenic design honors were shared across departments: at the Tonys, Miriam Buether's set won together with the video designers at 59 Studio, while at the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards she shared the prize with the illusion designers Jamie Harrison and Chris Fisher. Expect a loud, effects-heavy evening, with explosions, the sound of gunfire, strobe and other flashing lights, smoke and haze. As of February 2026, the company was reported to number 34 performers.

As of October 2026, Victor de Paula Rocha plays Henry Creel. He took over the role on March 31, 2026, from Louis McCartney, who created Henry in London and led the original Broadway company. Ayana Cymone plays Patty Newby and Shea Grant plays Joyce Maldonado; both were in the original Broadway company in other roles, Cymone as Sue Anderson and Grant as Claudia Yount. Matthew Erick White is James Hopper, Jr., and Juan Carlos plays Bob Newby.

As of October 2026, the principal company also includes Evan Alexander Smith as Dr. Brenner, Nick Rehberger as Victor Creel, Rosie Benton as Virginia Creel and Andrew Hovelson as Principal Newby. Lia Christina and Francesca Yhlen share the role of Alice Creel.

Netflix first revealed in July 2022 that a Stranger Things stage play was in the works, at the same time as a spin-off series. The full title was announced on March 1, 2023.

The world premiere took place at the Phoenix Theatre in London, where previews began on November 17, 2023, and the official opening followed on December 14, 2023. Louis McCartney, making his stage debut, created the role of Henry Creel there.

The Broadway transfer was announced on August 6, 2024. The Marquis Theatre hosted the first New York preview on March 28, 2025, and after 19 previews the production officially opened on April 22, 2025, with McCartney again playing Henry. The original Broadway company also featured Gabrielle Nevaeh as Patty, Alison Jaye as Joyce, Burke Swanson as the young Jim Hopper, Alex Breaux as Dr. Brenner and T.R. Knight as Victor Creel. That company gave its final performance together on March 29, 2026.

In April 2025, Netflix released Behind the Curtain: Stranger Things: The First Shadow, a documentary on how the play was created and brought to the West End. On December 19, 2025, Jamie Campbell Bower, who plays the adult Henry Creel in the series, made a surprise appearance during a Broadway performance. In February 2026, Netflix filmed the Broadway production so that it could be streamed later, canceling performances from February 10 to February 14 for the shoot; no release date had been announced at the time. By October 11, 2026, the Broadway production had played 611 performances, not counting previews.

On June 9, 2026, the producers announced closing dates for London and Broadway together. The Phoenix Theatre run is set to end in December 2026, after more than three years, and the most recent Broadway extension has been billed as the last. As of October 2026, there are no plans to stage the play anywhere beyond New York and London.