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.
It starts with those floating red letters and that electro-ethereal music. The intro creates the surreal effect of Netflix’s sci-fi juggernaut being brought to life as a stage-sized facsimile before our eyes. But the big surprise about this prequel to the TV series, about high-schoolers who tap into the dangerous world of the Upside Down, is that it is neither derivative nor an exercise in imitation. This is breathtaking theatre with its own arresting imagination.
Directed by Stephen Daldry (“Billy Elliot: The Musical”; “The Crown”) and written by Kate Trefry and Jack Thorne in collaboration with the TV show’s creators, the Duffer brothers, the show runs at the Phoenix Theater, in London, through Aug. 25, 2024. It’s a gaudy, vertiginous fairground ride of a play, exactly what you’d expect from a show co-produced by Netflix: Cheap thrills, expensively made.
2023 | West End |
West End |
West End |
West End |
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2025 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
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