Stranger Things: The First Shadow
stageplay based on television series Stranger Things
Stranger Things: The First Shadow is a play written by Kate Trefry from an original story by the Duffer Brothers, Jack Thorne, and Trefry. The story serves as a prequel to the events of the television series Stranger Things, exploring the backstory of Henry Creel before he became the antagonist Vecna. The production, directed by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, previewed on November 17, 2023, and officially opened on December 14 at the Phoenix Theatre in London's West End. The play began a run on Broadway at the Marquis Theatre, New York City, on April 22, 2025. In an interview with Variety, the Duffer Brothers confirmed the play is canon to the original series, with the series finale referencing events of the play. Both productions of the play in the West End and on Broadway announced their closing dates on June 9, 2026.
Plot
Prologue
In 1943, the United States holds secret experiments involving the USS Eldridge, hoping to use a force field to turn the ship invisible and undetectable to the Germans. However, the ship is instead transported to the Abyss, where most of the crew are killed by strange humanoid creatures.
Chapter One: The Girl from Nowhere
In 1959, the Creel family – consisting of Victor, his wife Virginia, and their children: older son, Henry, and younger daughter, Alice – move to a new home in Hawkins, Indiana. Henry is tormented, mentally disturbed and in possession of remarkable psychokinetic abilities.
The public source identifies “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” as stageplay based on television series Stranger Things. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Stranger, Things and First.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q116952040. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2023, 2025, 2026 and 1943.
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