How Stranger Things Season 5 Changed the Show’s New Play

Stranger Things: The First Shadow just hit Broadway, inviting theater goers deeper into the realms of Netflix’s hit show. The spin-off play takes the story back to Hawkins circa 1959 and expands Henry Creels’ origin story ahead of his transformation into Vecna, the big bad of the Duffer Brothers-created series.

On a recent Happy Sad Confused podcast episode, the show and theatrical production team discussed how the play, like Henry, had to transform as production on Stranger Things‘ final season wrapped up.

Ross Duffer shared that they knew the play would serve as a bridge between the seasons. “It is in communication a lot with season four and it’s setting up five in a way, but it is gonna be interesting. I think it informs five if you’ve seen the play and then watch season five, but then at the same time if you’re seeing the play after you seen season five it’ll probably play a little bit differently,” he said.

“You see that briefly in the documentary [Behind the Curtain: Stranger Things The First Shadow, now streaming on Netflix]. We’re trying to figure out how much information to put in this play because we don’t want to ruin the season five experience for anyone and we don’t want people to feel left out that are unable to get to New York or to London,” he said. “But at the same time we want the play to be meaningful and to play a role so I think finding that balance took a while to find exactly what that balance is but we’re pretty we’re happy with where it is now”

The creative team behind the play asserted that the purpose of Stranger Things: The First Shadow was to stand alone—meaning that ideally you could go see it on stage without seeing the Netflix series. However Kate Trefry, Stranger Things series writer and The First Shadow playwright, revealed that it got tricky as they worked in tandem on the final season and play.

Trefry explained, “I was working on writing the play and writing season five at the same time, and so they’re to me like just two pieces of a whole and they’re inextricable from each other. I think that the experience of consuming both together is gonna be really fun and satisfying to see how connected they are.”

However, Ross Duffer did confirm that season five’s finale did affect the final on-stage product. “I think part of the challenge [was] what you’re seeing in that play is, like, we [and] Kate [were] doing [season] five—[but at] a certain point [she was] just here doing this while we were filming. And then we were working on finale stuff and as Matt and I were doing [the] finale, stuff was changed. Everything was evolving in real time and I think that’s what made it the biggest challenge, because as we got to script we realized certain story points, we needed to change things, and that affected the play, but they were in the middle of doing the play. So things just kept—it was very close [because] the timing was like a few weeks before the play opened.”

Watch the creative team behind the hit Netflix juggernaut talk Stranger Things: The First Shadow below:

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