Hawkins, 1959: a regular town with regular worries. 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. When new student Henry Creel arrives, his family finds that a fresh start isn’t so easy… and the shadows of the past have a very long reach.
Brought to life by a multi-award-winning creative team, who take theatrical storytelling and stagecraft to a whole new dimension, this gripping new adventure will take you right back to the beginning of the Stranger Things story – and may hold the key to the end.
STRANGER THINGS: THE FIRST SHADOW is directed by Stephen Daldry with co-director Justin Martin, set design by Miriam Buether, costume design by Brigitte Reiffenstuel, lighting design by Jon Clark, sound design by Paul Arditti, illusions design & visual effects by Jamie Harrison & Chris Fisher, video design & visual effects by 59 Productions, original music & arrangements by D.J. Walde, choreography by Coral Messam, movement direction by Lynne Page, wigs, hair and make-up design by Campbell Young Associates, technical director is Gary Beestone for Gary Beestone Associates, props supervision by Mary Halliday, dialect by William Conacher, fight direction by Kev McCurdy, casting by Jessica Ronane CDG and international casting consultancy by Jim Carnahan.
This production contains gunfire audio, loud noises and explosions, haze and smoke, flashing lights and strobe, and strong language. There are depictions of various mental health conditions and disorders.
If you have any queries about effects in the show fill out this form here.
‘THE WEST END THEATRE EVENT OF THE YEAR’
DAILY TELEGRAPH
Collaborating with the brilliant Stephen Daldry has been nothing short of inspiring, and Kate Trefry has written a play that is at turns surprising, scary, and heartfelt. You will meet endearing new characters, as well as very familiar ones, on a journey into the past that sets the groundwork for the future of Stranger Things. We’re dying to tell you more about the story but won’t – it’s more fun to discover it for yourself.
It’s 1983 and a young boy, Will, disappears without a trace. As his friends, his mother – Joyce – and the police chief – Jim Hopper – search for answers, they are drawn into an extraordinary mystery involving top secret experiments led by Dr. Brenner at a local lab, a gate to another world known as the Upside Down, and one very strange little girl with otherworldly powers known only by a number: Eleven. While the young boy is ultimately saved, a connection between the Upside Down still remains and the story is just beginning…
It’s 1984 and a bigger, more sinister entity known as the Mind Flayer is uncovered. A possessed Will in addition to new terrifying creatures coming from the Upside Down are a threat to the town, and our heroes must fight from all sides. Joyce, alongside her new boyfriend Bob Newby and Hopper, bring Will to Hawkins Lab to be treated. Meanwhile Eleven has discovered another number like her and learns more about her powers. Eleven ultimately returns to Hawkins and is able to close the gate to the Upside Down, seemingly vanquishing the Mind Flayer, but while everyone is celebrating, we see it’s too good to be true…
It’s 1985 and the summer brings budding romances, the brand-new Starcourt Mall and of course the ever-present threat of danger in Hawkins. Though weakened, the Mind Flayer lives on and begins to create an army of human hosts. Meanwhile the new mall is actually built on top of a Russian operation to access the gate to the Upside Down. As Joyce and Hopper look to take care of things below, we see Eleven and her friends take on the Mind Flayer above. In the end they may win the Battle of Starcourt, but it’s not without loss…
It’s 1986 and six months after the Battle of Starcourt. There are a series of horrifying murders ravaging the town. Eddie Munson, the town freak, is the prime suspect, but there is a much more sinister origin with a connection to a similar case involving the Creel Family in 1959. With the fate of Hawkins and the world at risk, our heroes look to solve this gruesome mystery and ultimately discover that Vecna, an evolution of the original Hawkins Lab test subject, Henry Creel himself, has been behind it all with a greater plan to end the world as we know it by merging the Upside Down with our dimension. It’s the beginning of the end, but first we must understand how it all started 27 years earlier…
