Louis McCartney (Henry Creel) in 'Stranger Things: The First Shadow.' Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman Stranger Things: The First Shadow will end its Broadway run in January 2027 and its London run in December.
The special effects-filled play, produced by Netflix and Sonia Friedman Productions, opened on Broadway in April 2025, after premiering in London in 2023. But it hasn’t been the same hit in the U.S. as the streaming series. The show, which is a prequel to the Netflix show, drew its highest grosses around the release of the show’s last season in late 2025 (which also coincided with the industry’s lucrative holiday season), reaching a Christmas Week high of $2.5 million.
In recent weeks, however, the show has been playing around 60 to 70 percent capacity, and brought in $859,339 last week. The play, which has a cast of more than 30 and is filled with illusions and special effects, suggesting a high weekly running cost, has not announced that it has recouped.
It will also have another competitor in the horror realm, with Paranormal Activity coming to Broadway this summer.
The West End show, which opened in December 2023, will complete its run at the Phoenix Theatre on Dec. 27. The Broadway show will end its run at the Marquis Theatre on Jan. 3.
This is Netflix’s biggest stage project to date, and executives had positioned it as a way to connect with the fandom around the series, in the same way the company has launched immersive experiences around Bridgerton and Squid Game. The hope was likely for the show to have a longer run, in the vein of Harry Potter and The Cursed Child, which opened on Broadway in 2018 and the West End in 2016, but has had multiple revisions to shorten the run time.
Netflix had previously filmed the stage production of Stranger Things streaming, but a release date has not yet been announced.
“Stranger Things: The First Shadow represents an unprecedented collaboration between television and theatre, showing what’s possible when a world class creative team brings a beloved and iconic series to life on stage. It has been a privilege to share this production with audiences over the past few years and particularly rewarding to see it introduce so many to the magic of theatre,” said Bela Bajaria, chief content officer at Netflix.
Written by Stranger Things writer Kate Trefrey, the story serves as a prequel to the Netflix series and has tie-ins to Season Five, as it explores the origin story of Henry Creel, otherwise known as Vecna, the series villian. Set in 1959, the play features the high school versions of characters from the television series as their lives are upended by Creel and his newfound discovery of his powers
“When the legendary Stephen Daldry first came to us with the idea of making a Stranger Things play, we were stunned — both by the fact that Stephen wanted to do this, and that he believed it could work. And boy, did it work,” said Matt and Ross Duffer, who are the creative producers of the stage show and creators of the Netflix series. “We remain awed by what Stephen, Kate Trefry, Justin Martin, and all the brilliant behind-the-scenes wizards were able to pull off: cinematic theater unlike anything else out there. Their incredible work drew audiences from all over — a majority of whom had never even been to a Broadway show before.”
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