Unusual issues are coming to a stage close to you—when you’re within the U.Ok. Netflix has introduced {that a} Stranger Issues play will open on London’s West Finish in late 2023.
Stranger Issues: The First Shadow is predicated on an unique story by Jack Thorne, Kate Trefry, and the Duffer Brothers, who created the smash hit sequence about supernatural occasions that happen in Hawkins, Indiana within the Eighties. Netflix is maintaining the inventive crew within the household with Trefry, a Stranger Issues author and co-executive producer, and Stephen Daldry, the Tony winner who additionally nabbed an Emmy for his work on The Crown, tapped to direct. Sonia Friedman Productions is ready to supply the play alongside Netflix, with the Duffer Brothers on board as inventive producers and manufacturing firm 21 Laps serving as affiliate producer.
Whereas particulars of the plot stay beneath wraps, the play will function a prequel to the Stranger Issues sequence, starting in Hawkins, Indiana in 1959 and increasing “proper again to the start of the Stranger Issues story.” Per the announcement, beloved Stranger Factor‘s characters like Jim Hopper (performed on the small display screen by David Harbour), Joyce Maldonado (the longer term Joyce Byers, performed by Winona Ryder), and Henry Creel (Jamie Campbell Bower) will all seem in some trend.
“Hawkins, 1959: an everyday city with common worries,” reads Netflix’s announcement. “Younger Jim Hopper’s automobile received’t begin, Bob Newby’s sister received’t take his radio present significantly and Joyce Maldonado simply desires to graduate and get the hell out of city. When new pupil Henry Creel arrives, his household finds {that a} contemporary begin isn’t really easy… and the shadows of the previous have a really lengthy attain.“
“We’re past enthusiastic about Stranger Issues: The First Shadow,” stated the Duffer Brothers in an announcement. “Collaborating with the good Stephen Daldry has been nothing in need of inspiring, and Kate Trefry has written a play that’s at turns stunning, scary, and heartfelt. You’ll meet endearing new characters, in addition to very acquainted ones, on a journey into the previous that units the groundwork for the way forward for Stranger Issues. We’re dying to inform you extra in regards to the story however will not – it’s extra enjoyable to find it for your self. Can’t wait to see you nerds in London!”
Since its debut in 2016, Stranger Issues has change into a world phenomenon for Netflix, with its most up-to-date two-part fourth season topping Netflix’s hottest English TV checklist with 1.35 billion hours seen and incomes the largest premiere weekend ever for an English-language TV present on Netflix. The sequence revitalized the careers of veteran actors like Ryder and Harbour, and launched the world to a brand new crop of younger stars together with Millie Bobby Brown, Sadie Sink, and Maya Hawke. Stranger Issues’ use of Kate Bush‘s “Working Up That Hill” throughout a pivotal second in season 4 catapulted the basic Eighties pop music to primary on Billboard’s international charts for the primary time ever, 37 years after it debuted.
Whereas music has performed a strong position within the Stranger Issues universe, Stranger Issues: The First Shadow is decidedly not a musical. Which is a disgrace, given the Stranger Issues forged’s musical bonafides—Sink performed Annie on Broadway, Hawke is a touring singer-song author, and Gaten Matarazzo is getting ready to play Toby within the Sweeney Todd revival on Broadway. If we won’t get a full musical, maybe a musical episode is within the playing cards earlier than Stranger Issues ends after its forthcoming fifth season.
