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Producers of Stranger Things: The First Shadow, an onstage offshoot of Netflix's cultural phenomenon, have just taken another step toward bringing this monster hit to Broadway.
Back in December, when the massive theatrical epic opened in London's West End, the show was already dropping hints about an upcoming transatlantic transfer. Now the website BroadwayWorld reports that the production has posted an Equity casting notice for actors and stage managers, and will hold principal auditions in New York City next week, and video submissions are already being accepted for Equity actors and stage managers. (It is unclear whether any of the show's London cast, which includes many teenagers along with Oklahoma!'s Patrick Vaill, will be in the Broadway version.)
No official announcement has been made yet, but the casting notice refers to a "production in 2025."
In the tradition of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Stranger Things: The First Shadow does not reproduce a preexisting Stranger Things story onstage, but expands the Stranger Things universe with a new story set in a different decade. The show, set in 1959, depicts the younger years of central series characters including Joyce Maldonaldo, Jim Hopper, Bob Newby and Dr. Martin Brenner; playwright Kate Trefry—a staff writer for all five seasons of the TV version—has devised the story with series creators Matt and Ross Duffer and Cursed Child playwright Jack Thorne.
The West End production, directed by major player Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot), has earned enthusiastic reviews, especially for its impressive staging. "Stranger Things: The First Shadow is a sprawling maximalist monolith, a gargantuan entertainment that goes beyond being a mere 'play,’" wrote Time Out's Andrzej Lukowski in his review of the London production. "As overwhelming in scale as as the show’s monstrous Mindflayer, it’s a seethingly ambitious three-hour extravaganza of groundbreaking special effects, gratuitous easter eggs and a wild, irreverent theatricality that feels totally in love with the source material while being appreciably distinct from it."
"In season four we learn about Henry Creel and his disruptive presence in Hawkins, as told from the point of view of his dad, Victor Creel, who's in the mental hospital," Trefry told Time Out in an interview last year. "This play is set about the same time, when Henry first arrives in Hawkins and things start to go really wrong. But it’s told from a more universal perspective. And so you really understand what happened and why it happened and how he ended up with killing his family and how he ended up with [another show antagonist] Doctor Brenner."
"It was really a joy to go back and try to reverse-engineer the characters," Trefry tadded. "And, you know, it's fun to tell a story about what people could be, knowing the tragedy of who they became."
The First part of the title is not about the fact that the show is a prequel: According to Deadline, two more Stranger Things plays are "set to follow […] in two- or three-year intervals."
Details for the New York production of Stranger Things: The First Shadow are still under wraps, but you can find out more about the play itself on its website, and buy tickets to the London version here.
