Henry Creel Origins Teased in New ‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow’ Trailer

Stranger Things: The First Shadow, the U.K. stage play based on the hit Netflix series, has dropped another trailer looking at the drama’s biggest villain, Henry Creel.

“It’s not real. I’m normal,” an anguished Creel, the telekinetic boy played by Louis McCartney, repeatedly declares in the latest teaser for the stage play. Directed by Stephen Daldry and co-director Justin Martin, the play has been extended to 2025 in London’s West End, as reports point to a possible transfer and premiere on Broadway next year.

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The 1959-set prequel centers around younger versions of characters in the Netflix Stranger Things series characters, including Patty Newby (Ella Karuna Williams), Joyce Maldonado ( Isabella Pappas), Jim Hopper Jr. (Oscar Lloyd) and Bob Newby (Christopher Buckley).

The latest footage offers an origin story of how Henry Creel became number one, aka “001.” Creel is the younger version of the Jamie Campbell Bower character who evolves into the season four villain Vecna in the Netflix series.

The play’s logline: “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.”

Netflix announced the stage production, its first outing in live theater, in July 2022 and is producing the play alongside Sonia Friedman Productions.

Kate Trefry, a writer and executive producer on the TV series, wrote the stage play, from a story by Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer, Jack Thorne and Trefry. The Duffer Brothers are creative producers and Stranger Things. EP Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps Entertainment is an associate producer.

Stranger Things the series will conclude with the forthcoming fifth and final season on Netflix. Here’s everything we know about the final episodes, so far.

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