Video: Hanging with the Cast of STRANGER THINGS: THE FIRST SHADOW

So when you found out you were going to work on this and create this show for the stage

what went through your mind? I don't think it should be a musical

Definitely not a musical. It's not a musical. Definitely not a musical. Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World

Following a critically acclaimed sold-out run on London's West End, Stranger Things, the First Shadow, is coming to Broadway's marquee theater

where previews begin on March 28th. and I caught up with a company here at Netflix

I think it's probably one of the most challenging things I've ever done as a producer

In the best possible way, it's sort of setting a whole new level of complexity of production and producing and positioning and development

Working with a live story that has yet to complete its canon

we land between seasons four and five. So season five, which is going to be hours and hours and hours of epic telly

which lands later on this year. We sit between seasons four and five as a show, and the play

and our story speaks to season five, which is yet to be released

and season five, lots and lots of Easter eggs, speaks to our play

So you got this unprecedented unique situation going on to start with which is the law of stranger things and the narrative of stranger things is still evolving

And we come in in the middle of it. I think there was just a real joy in trying to figure out what kind of people Hopper and Joyce and Bob were before they grew into these damaged adults

What were they like when they were kind of coming of age? That was really exciting to me

Yeah. Yeah. And co-directing this with Stephen. what that is meant to

This is epic, and it's even going to be bigger here, right? Massive here, which we're so excited about

Listen, we love the world and the universe, and it's so imaginative. And so to be able to play in that world

And we said to Kate, don't necessarily write a play. Write us a couple of episodes

and then we'll work out how to create it. And so what we've really tried to do is to create a live version of the series

without going, this is a play. So it's really pushed us to be as an imaginative and creative as we can

and I think we've done something that's extraordinary. I love it. I'm so excited

And even being in this room with everyone, the energy is like palpable. We're really excited because we're in the rehearsal room right now

just making, telling a story, pulling it apart, making it better. And the idea that like, you know, this is happening

and that people are going to come see it is really exciting. Yeah, we have a week and a half before we go into the theater for tech

And then it's going to become a completely different thing that, well, I'm going to speak for myself

My brain can't really comprehend right now. I just, it's going to change so much

We going to all of a sudden all of these massive things that we that have been described to us are going to we going to see them come to life And that yeah kid in a candy shop kind of Very exciting Has the whole experience been a blur for you I say so yeah you know I get asked a lot about my experience last year

and it was a complete blur of, you know, destruction and death and love and passion

You know, there was a lot that we put into it last year and we got a lot out of it, certainly, and it's such a blessing to be able to do it again

And I can't wait to share another blur with a bunch of new people. Cool. So you have quite a history with this because you just finished, you wrapped the last season of the show, right

Yeah, I had the pleasure of acting in season five. And we were there from January 4th, like December 17th. So we were there for about 12 months. We just wrapped. And then probably in December, I auditioned for Brenner and ended up parlaying that into staying with a stranger thing family

Talk about a full circle moment for you. Amazing. Well, and the funny thing is, I was acting in Shakespeare in the park with David Harbor when season one came

came out and I saw that, you know, changed his life in a material way. So it's been a, it's been

really like, you know, a fun full circle moment for sure. The fans that are going to come to this

show. Have you thought about that already? Oh, man. Yes, I feel like I'm just beginning to realize

the scope of that. But what an exciting opportunity to go, to be a part of something where the people

that they love the most, they can almost touch now in a way that they haven't seen these people

before, right? In 1959. That's never happened. So, I mean, the be a big. I mean, the big. I mean, the

The beauty of theater, right, is that we are telling the story with the audience. And so this is the first time that fans actually get to be actively a part of this story

This is your opportunity I mean really it like you can miss it because you aren going to be able to fully appreciate season five unless you see this show It so integrally corrected and corrected every day because we have to keep all the editing the same

It's amazing. Yeah, I think there's been so much attention to kind of the canon of the show and tying that into this like never before seen 1959 world of Hawkins and our Hawkins

while at the same time creating brand new scopes of characters, conversation

You've never seen something like this before, especially with these people at this age

You realize you're living in the Stranger Things world, right? Yeah. Did you, like, love the series

I mean, there have been lots of nightmares after rehearsals. I have to come home and I've started binge watching friends to kind of like cleanse my palate

But I was a long-time fan of the series. Any fan experience, any meet and greet that I could be at, I was there

I waited 12 hours one time to meet Millie Bobby Brown. Wow

Yeah, so I am a long-time fan, so it's absolutely mind-blowing to be able to create an original character in the franchise

And just to have some sort of creative license in the world that I grew up watching, I think that it's a gift as an actor

You know, it's rare that you get this opportunity. Yeah, the show, the original series had come out a couple of days after my birthday, and I had watched it, binge it, and it was like, dang, I wish she just came out before

because I want all the merch now. I didn't even know I wanted to be an actor at the time. And I'd asked my mom, I said for Christmas, could you please get me a stranger thing shirt

And she had got to me a shirt that says the Hawkins A.V. Club. And now I'm playing Bob Newby, the guy who created the Hawkins A.V. Club

So what an insane, full circle moment. I'm such a fan of the show

And I can't wait for season five myself