New Stranger Things play The First Shadow inspiring ideas for fifth and final season

The fifth and final season of Stranger Things won’t drop on Netflix until next year, but some of us will be going back to Hawkins before that: a new play called Stranger Thing: The First Shadow will debut in London’s West End in December.

The play is written by Stranger Things writer Kate Trefry, and original series creators Matt and Ross Duffer are closely involved, although the idea actually came from Tony-award winning director Stephen Daldry. “Daldry was a big fan of the show and wanted to do a play, but he was so busy with The Crown that I thought this would never happen,” Matt Duffer told the BBC. “Finally a window opened up, he came back and expressed his interest again, and we met up with him and started to talk about what the play could be.”

"I think when I first heard play, you immediately think it’s going to be a musical of season one or something like that. He was not interested in that kind of thing at all. He wanted to tell a new and original story."

The Stranger Things play will have both darkness and fun

That original story is a prequel set in the sleepy town of Hawkins, Indiana in the 1950s, when a young Victor Creel (the boy who will become Vecna) moves there with his family. We’ll also meet high school-age versions of characters like Joyce Byers, Jim Hopper and Bob Newby. “So yes, we have the darkness and the horror that comes along with the Henry Creel story, but then we have sort of the fun and pop that comes from meeting and getting to know young Joyce, young Hopper, young Bob,” Matt said.

According to Ross Duffer, the stage show will feel of a piece with the rest of Stranger Things. “[W]e’ve got multiple storylines and strands going on throughout, and they all build to a pretty epic climax,” he said. “So we’re excited that it is a play in itself, but it’s also using some of the storytelling style that is so much a part of the show.”

That said, the Duffers aren’t planning to adapt the play back to TV…although they never planned for a play to happen in the first place, so who knows? “I don’t see us producing it for television, but we’re trying to treat everything in this play as a standalone story,” Ross said. “That’s how we try to approach it as opposed to just, ‘Oh, well, we need to do other shows, or seasons’. We think, no, what is exciting about this and does it work on its own?”

Stranger Things creators being “very, very careful” that The First Shadow play lines up with the Netflix show

The play was mainly inspired by the events of Stranger Things season 4, which included flashbacks to Victor Creel’s upbringing in the ’50s. According to Ross Duffer, the play gave them “a lot of room to explore the origin of evil and in Hawkins,” which got their brains firing. Now, some of the “things in the play” have given the brothers ideas for season 5. “We’re trying to be very, very careful to make sure that it all fits in locks into place,” Ross said.

Brother Matt concurred. “Some of the mythology stuff is a little bit trickier, but like Ross said, it’s been fun to have the play influence the show, and the show influenced the play,” he said. All that said, the intention is still for the play to provide a “unique theatrical experience.”

Stranger Things: The First Shadow will premiere in London on December 14. Previews begin on November 17.

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