Stranger Things Stage Play’s First Teaser Trailer Hints at Season 5 Revelations

Production on the fifth and final season of Stranger Things may be on hold amid the ongoing writers’ strike, but we did get something of a tease today… in the form of the first trailer for its stage production.

Stranger Things: The First Shadow, which will debut on London’s West End sometime this year, dropped a brief teaser that was mostly made up of clips from previous seasons of the Netflix hit. But perhaps the most substantial part about it wasn’t any footage, but what a tagline in the trailer teased:

“The beginning of the Stranger Things story might hold the key to what comes next.”

#StrangerThingsOnStage will take you right back to the beginning of the Stranger Things story – and it might hold the key to what comes next… ? pic.twitter.com/3y9waLiG9j

— Stranger Things (@Stranger_Things) July 5, 2023

We already knew that The First Shadow would be a prequel, turning the clock all the way back to 1959 to focus on when Henry Creel and his family moved to Hawkins, Indiana. Season 4 introduced the family – which we’d learn would be an incredibly important one in the lore of Stranger Things – and showed their fate through flashbacks (we won’t spoil it in this story just in case, but you can read our breakdown of everything we learned about the Creels in Season 4 here).

“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,” reads The First Shadow’s plot synopsis. “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.”

The stage show was first revealed this March, with the Duffer brothers – who serve as the showrunners and creative masterminds behind Stranger Things – serving as producers. Kate Trefry, who writes and produces on the series, wrote the play, with Stephen Daldry directing.

For fans in London, it should be a good way to hold them over until Stranger Things’ highly anticipated final season, which isn’t expected to debut for another couple of years. But for the rest of the world, they’ll just have to rely on the bits and pieces of news that drop in the meantime, like Netflix’s recent reveal that Terminator star Linda Hamilton will be joining the cast of Season 5. 

Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.