STRANGER THINGS: THE FIRST SHADOW

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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

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• 0:59Josh Horowitz?

  When you were hatching Stranger Things, did, in your wildest dreams, you ever think, "We're taking this to Broadway. We're taking this to the stage one day."

• 1:08Speaker 03

  Yes, this is always the plan.

• 1:09Josh Horowitz?

  Right?

• 1:11Speaker 03

  So, I'm glad it all came, turned out.

• 1:13Speaker 04

  Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, Sad, Confused begins now.

• 1:21Josh Horowitz?

  Hey guys, it's Josh. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. This one is for the Stranger Things fans out there, and I know you're out there. This conversation is with the creative team behind Stranger Things, the first shadow of the age, enormous Broadway play that has just debuted here in New York City. The Duffer Brothers, the playwright, the director, the producer. A lot of Stranger Things conversation coming at you in just a second. Before we get to that, as always, lots of things going on in Happy, Sad, Confused universe. As always, check it out on our Patreon. That's where we put up all the announcements immediately. We give you bonus materials. Patreon.com/happysadconfused. Merch, discount codes, live events. What more can you ask for? Check it out.

• 2:05Josh Horowitz?

  Help us over there because it supports everything we do over here. Speaking of live events, lots coming up. May 14th, Tony Gilroy, the mastermind behind Star Wars's fantastic series on Disney Plus, Andor, and a great filmmaker in his own right. Michael Clayton is an all-time classic. May 14th in New York City at 92nd Street Y. I'm gonna be catching up with Tony. That is, by the way, the day after the finale of Andor, so I think we're gonna be able to get really deep into spoilers, so that should be cool. May 12th, and I think this is official by now, if not, ignore me, Alexander Skarsgård, also at 92nd Street Y. I'm gonna catch up with him

• 2:45Josh Horowitz?

  about his new series Murder Bot, but also his extensive career. And at this moment, if you're watching this on Monday or Tuesday, there's still time, I think, to come on out on April 29th to see me and Jeremy Renner. Jeremy Renner has a memoir out that's really focused on that insane accident, that one in a million accident he had a couple of years back that nearly, nearly killed him, and his long road of recovery back. It's a great book, I've read it, and it's always fun to catch up with Jeremy. So get your tickets now. That's at, actually, the Gramercy Theater. That's not a live podcast taping, that's just like a cool, deep dive into this, into this book.

• 3:26Josh Horowitz?

  And I believe his only New York City live event, so really honored that Jeremy asked for me to moderate that conversation. Okay, so back to the main event. Stranger Things: The First Shadow. For those that don't know, this show debuted about a year and a half back, I believe, in the West End of London. Huge success, won all the awards, sold all the tickets, it's still running, and now has just debuted on Broadway. It doesn't get any bigger than this, this production. It's the biggest production I think I've ever seen. The Harry Potter one is pretty big, too. It's on that scale. This conversation is with some really cool folks, Matt and Ross Duffer for one or two,

• 4:09Josh Horowitz?

  I guess. They, of course, the creators of Stranger Things. They don't do a lot of this kind of thing. So I'm honored that I got a chance to catch up with them. They're always fantastic. Kate Tree Fry, who is a very key writer on the Stranger Things TV show and wrote this new Broadway production, this new production that's running in both London and New York right now, as well as Justin Martin, who is a fantastic director of many great stage work, and Sonia Friedman, who is a Broadway legend and London legend. She's produced so many great plays and shows over the years. So this was recorded at the Paris Theater in New York City. This was recorded after a screening of the documentary that

• 4:52Josh Horowitz?

  is currently on Netflix that I highly recommend that is about the behind the scenes of the making of the London production. You get all that? Okay. So in no particular order, I saw the doc before I saw the play. It works either way, but I would recommend this. Like, the doc on Netflix right now is a great, really candid look at the process of putting together a gigantic show. I really enjoyed it. And then the show itself, as you'll hear in this, is fascinating. It is a prequel, takes place in 1959. And yes, there are some very familiar characters in there, including Bob and Joyce and Hopper. And right at the center of it, it is about Henry Creel Beckner and his, it's his backstory,

• 5:37Josh Horowitz?

  essentially, his origin story. So I thought it was fantastic. I couldn't recommend it highly enough. Get your tickets now. If you want to, you know, Broadway tickets are expensive, but you're going to get bang for your buck on this one. It truly, it's not hyperbole. It does not get any bigger in terms of production. You're like at a theme park ride as much as a Broadway show. And I think you're going to be very, very entertained. Okay, so please enjoy this chat. Again, it's a live conversation in front of an audience at the Paris Theater. And yeah, there are some hints, I think, of what's to come on Stranger Things. You know, the Duffers are tight lipped, but let's listen closely, everybody, to see if we can figure out some stuff going forward.

• 6:22Josh Horowitz?

  Enjoy my chat with the creative team behind Stranger Things: The First Shadow. Hi, guys, welcome. My name is Josh Horowitz. I usually host a podcast called Happy, Sad, and Fused, but tonight, it is my distinct honor to talk to the creative team behind Stranger Things: The First Shadow. You guys have had just a small taste of this remarkable production that is, by the way, opening on Broadway in 24 hours, less than 24 hours, I know. I feel somewhat guilty that we are tearing them away from the theater at this 11th hour, but it's all for a good cause. We're going to spread the good word for this production.

• 7:07Josh Horowitz?

  I've seen the show, I'm sure some of you maybe have seen it in London or in previews. It is as ambitious a production, as powerful a production onstage as I've seen in quite some time. There's a lot to talk about, there's some amazing talents waiting to come onstage, so let's bring them out, shall we? You ready for this? Please give a warm welcome to producer Sonia Friedman, everybody. Here she is. Please give a warm welcome to the creators of Stranger Things, the series, and executive producers on the play, Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer. Matt, Ross.

• 7:50Josh Horowitz?

  Please give a warm welcome to playwright Kate Treefry, everybody. And please give a huge welcome to director Justin Martin. Justin, join us, please.

• 8:12Josh Horowitz?

  Packed house, here we go guys. How are you feeling? I was saying before, we are, we're a day away. Um, is the show locked? Are we done? I mean, shouldn't you be working? What's going on, Sonia?

• 8:22Speaker 05

  Who are you asking?

• 8:23Josh Horowitz?

  Let's start with you.

• 8:25Speaker 05

  It's locked. Now ask Justin.

• 8:28Josh Horowitz?

  Justin?

• 8:29Speaker 06

  What does locked mean?

• 8:32Josh Horowitz?

  Kate, is it locked?

• 8:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 8:35Speaker 05

  And that's how it's been.

• 8:37Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah, well, they got a sense of that, watching this documentary, didn't they? Um, but what does actually happen, like, this next 24 hours?

• 8:45Speaker 05

  Well, um, from, I've, I've got a lot of work to do. I have all that preparing for tomorrow evening, building up, um, and keeping the cast calm, focused.

• 8:58Speaker 05

  It's another night for them, but it's also a celebration on Broadway, which is very different to London. Obviously, you've just seen us opening in London. In London, uh, the critics all came in pretty much on the same day or day or two before we opened, whereas here, um, when you open on the show on Broadway, most of you know that it's a celebration for us because the critics have all been through. So it's, uh, tomorrow night's a celebration with family and friends.

• 9:27Josh Horowitz?

  So before we get to the, um, the history of this production, since the folks did just see this documentary, which I was saying to you before, is a remarkably candid and open look at the process. I'm a sucker for a great behind-the-scenes film or, or play, uh, doc, and this one really, you guys spoke very openly, I feel like. Did you forget the cameras were there at a certain point, Justin or Kate?

• 9:49Speaker 06

  We had a lovely cameraman, G, who was with us all the time and became part of the family, but it was quite alarming because you did forget often, and he had little spy cams everywhere that you'd suddenly remember halfway through, uh, listening in. But it felt like they were a part of the conversation, so it didn't, you became unaware of them, they were around so much.

• 10:07Josh Horowitz?

  Kate, is there anything, have you seen the doc, by the way? Have you seen the?

• 10:10Speaker 01

  I did. I have seen the doc. Um, I watched it last night, uh, with my family. Um, but, yes, G was everywhere all the time, and then at the worst possible moment, you would realize he's there and he's filming you. And you have to sneak up and go, "Gee, you have to, you have to, you gotta erase all of that, you can't, no one can, no one can see any of that."

• 10:34Speaker 06

  There is a compilation of us telling G to bugger off.

• 10:38Speaker 06

  We had, we did not, some of it's in there, but most of it's not.

• 10:40Josh Horowitz?

  Right. So whose crazy idea was it to open the production in, in, in this open and honest way to a documentary crew? And were you all in from the start, or?

• 10:50Speaker 01

  Not me.

• 10:52Speaker 05

  Um, Netflix.

• 10:53Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah.

• 10:54Speaker 05

  I mean, if you're gonna produce a show with Netflix, that's part of what comes with it.

• 11:01Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah.

• 11:01Speaker 05

  And it was exciting. And I, actually, from my perspective, I loved the idea of theater being unpacked and celebrated on a platform as global as Netflix. Having theater there is extraordinary for someone like me.

• 11:21Josh Horowitz?

  All right, let's talk a little bit about how this ginormous crazy production even came about. Matt and Ross, when you were hatching Stranger Things, did, in your wildest dreams, you ever think, we're taking this to Broadway, we're taking this to the stage one day?

• 11:36Speaker 03

  Yes, this is always the plan.

• 11:37Josh Horowitz?

  Right.

• 11:39Speaker 03

  So, I'm glad it all came, turned out. Uh, no, no, it's not the last thing on our minds, really. We were just, we were shocked Netflix wanted to make a show with us in the first place. So, um, but then Stephen, um, we heard about Stephen being interested in doing a play very early on. Was it after season two, we first heard about it from executives at Netflix? And then it never, he ended up getting busy and it never, nothing ever came of it.

• 12:05Speaker 06

  Well, I think Netflix actually actively discouraged it, because they, they needed, they wanted, like, Stephen, please focus on The Crown. Like, I remember that. I was like, but it'd be cool if he could also, you know, focus on this.

• 12:15Josh Horowitz?

  They're like, these guys have a TV series to make, he's got a TV series to make.

• 12:18Speaker 06

  Yeah. It was like, you know, so we thought it was gonna go away for a long time. And then it ended up, you know, everybody was patient, and then the timing ended up being just right for.

• 12:28Speaker 03

  Just right for the, I think for the narrative, too, for the story. Because we had, at that point, we were much further along in sort of opening up the mythology of the show. We were working on breaking season four, when we started talking to Stephen and initially working with Jack Thorne. And because we were breaking the story of Henry Creel, and we realized that we had A lot more story to tell that we didn't, even though that season is long, we didn't, we didn't even have, we didn't have room to put in all that we wanted to about Henry. And so, we thought this was the perfect avenue. And, once we started talking about Henry, and initially being at Hawkins, we realized Joyce would be there and Hopper would be there. And then, then that's when we really got excited and said, "This could be something special in Stephen's hands." Yeah.

• 13:11Josh Horowitz?

  So, how much of, obviously, yeah, we see Bob, we see Joyce, we see Hopper, how much of their backstory was already kind of on your mind in any kind of official or unofficial show bible of where they were in 1959? And how much had to be kind of created from scratch?

• 13:25Speaker 03

  I mean, a lot was created from, I mean, Kate can answer this too. I think that, I mean, in the show, we, I mean, Joyce and Hopper talk about sharing cigarettes under the stairwell, but like, that's it. We're sort of hinting at these, these backstories.

• 13:37Speaker 06

  Bob and AV club. And we, we had, we wanted to do like flashbacks, or some storyline, or an episode, and we just, it just, you know, it's one of those things that just never came to fruition, but we always thought it would be cool. So, then, Kate, I don't know, how much, how many ideas did we have before you went into this?

• 13:53Speaker 01

  Not very many.

• 13:55Speaker 06

  Right. Yeah, that's what I thought.

• 13:57Josh Horowitz?

  So, what made you, okay, you look at the writers' room and you say, "That lady's the one for this job. Kate Tree Frye. We're gonna, we're gonna talk to her."

• 14:05Speaker 06

  Oh, a hundred percent. No, I mean, like, so Kate came in, I think it's, some of this is in the documentary. But yeah, yeah, she, you know, she came in season two, and she's been our little, we call her the secret weapon in the room. And, she just can write the show like nobody else. She can write the characters and the dialogue. She's very good at that. That's the thing that is, I think, the hardest for people to do, to come in and sort of inhabit these characters. So, and, and it felt very natural that she would be the one to do it. And so, anyway, that's, that's how we ended up landing on Kate. It came about pretty organically.

• 14:44Speaker 03

  And I think Stephen and Sonya were very, I think it was amazing how open you guys were to be. This, Kate is not a playwright, or now she is.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  No.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  An award-winning playwright, actually.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  No, no, no.

• 15:02Speaker 03

  But at the time, she just wrote an TV episode. So this was a pretty big leap for everyone to take. But obviously, she knew these characters, she knew the world, she knew the mythology.

• 15:10Speaker 05

  But I think, it's worth Justin talking about the writing process because, actually, Kate, you were the perfect writer for this project because of your process, which you may want to talk about for a second, Justin, about how we workshop and workshop and workshop and workshop and Kate has to rewrite and rewrite and rewrite. And a lot of playwrights wouldn't be up for that process. And it was very exciting seeing the three of you constantly challenging yourselves.

• 15:47Speaker 06

  I think it takes someone with the dexterity of Kate. Because we originally said to her, "Don't write a play, write two episodes." And then she delivered these episodes that were so expansive. And we were like, "How the hell are we gonna do all this stuff?" But it really pushed us to go, "How can we push what theatre can do, which is what we're constantly trying to do for ourselves?" And then it was a process of, which Kate hadn't really done, which is she would write a script, and then we'd get actors, we'd put it on stage, straight away, just in a workshop room, and then it'd work or it wouldn't work, and then we'd change it. And it was sort of constant, you're constantly getting feedback on what you've written and what you're working on. And so we're throwing ideas at each other, which is sort of totally mad.

• 16:28Speaker 06

  And Kate was so responsive to going, I mean, your catchphrase is always, "I'm kind of into it." And that was the process. But it was a lot of months of workshopping, which is what we do so much in theatre, and it's a joy, because you can test things out. You're not just relying on a script to show up, and it's done, and that's what you're stuck with doing. And so I don't think a show like this can happen unless there is a symbiotic conversation between us and Kate and the rest of the team, because we're all coming at it with what theatre can do, with what new imagination or idea that Kate's thrown at us to blow up our own imaginations. And we constantly did that throughout this, and were surprised by it and ourselves, and I think the show.

• 17:13Speaker 06

  And where we got to is a testament of that, because it's done things that none of us, on our own, could have done.

• 17:20Josh Horowitz?

  What is the early or late creative breakthrough for you, Kate, that kind of unlocks this story? So like you kind of have the broad strokes from early on in the initial conversation with Matt and Ross that you want to explore this time period and these characters and Henry. But, I don't know, was there some point where you kind of like knew what the show was going to be?

• 17:40Speaker 01

  I felt like I got really involved, like really early on. As soon as I knew that it was an origin story of Henry Creel and that it was going to be, you know, with these big cast members as teenagers. I'm, one of the reasons I love working on the show so much is because I'm obsessed with teenagers and as soon as I said it, I wanted to take it back. Strike it, strike it, guys. I think that that time is so electric and exciting. I had a, I struggled a lot as a teenager and I think that this idea of are you inherently

• 18:25Speaker 01

  evil? Can you change? Can things change you? You know, how much control do you have? Was always really fascinating to me and so I was so excited to tackle the kind of like granddaddy of like Vecna, like the ultimate evil, like pure evil and like how do you get there and what were you before? And then, you know, in a broader sense with each of these, you know, canon characters of Joyce, Hopper, Bob and, you know, even like to a lesser extent like Karen and Sue and, you know, Ted and all of these people. It was such a fun challenge as a writer to say, we know what they are and how do we

• 19:05Speaker 01

  go back and reverse engineer what they were and then create this play that is about the moment that changed them all fundamentally to make them what they are. This like scar informs who they become and as recognizable characters in the show. So, you know, like Hopper responding with like guilt and Joyce responding with this like fierce desire to protect, you know, like how can all of that spring from this central event that is the play? And so that was like just, I mean madness. It was madness. It was so fun, though.

• 19:53Josh Horowitz?

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• 21:59Josh Horowitz?

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• 23:20Josh Horowitz?

  So we've hinted at, and you've seen in this documentary, you've gotten a sense, but you're really not going to get it until you see the actual production, of how ambitious this is on the stage. You've said, this is the hardest production, the most ambitious production you've ever been a part of. Look up Sonia Friedman's resume, you will know that is saying something. Talk to me a little bit about why you say that. What makes this as challenging as it is?

• 23:42Speaker 05

  To put this genre on stage, I think it's one of the reasons why Stephen initially was so excited, because I think he wanted, at this stage in his career, to also challenge himself in terms of what is possible physically on stage. Always to be driven by emotional narrative, but how can you get real supernatural sci-fi horror on stage, but always through narrative?

• 24:16Speaker 05

  And I think we surrounded ourselves with the best of the best. And it was one of those moments where everyone said, we've never been given this opportunity before to, to really, really push those boundaries of what's possible technically onstage. And I, certainly as a producer, I'm always sort of saying, more, more, I want, you know, what more can we do, what more can we achieve? And I think all of us were trying to see how far we could push ourselves. And it was an incredible experience because the collaboration between lighting, sound,

• 24:57Speaker 05

  music, video, illusion, set, costume, it was, it was more or less for most of the time seamless. And they all collaborated, we all got on the same train and we all went on the same journey. And you do have to see it to, to, to experience what I'm talking about, but it's, it's pretty remarkable what everybody's achieved. And I, and I do think theatre has never seen anything like it.

• 25:28Josh Horowitz?

  I, I, I will say, I was at the Friday night performance and there were literally people around me that it's like, you know, you're in that movie theatre experience when someone's like, what the, like, literally speaking back to the screen. That happens multiple times in this show. We've seen the doc, like, the first time you guys see it, it's without all the bells and whistles, you're just seeing kind of the raw material. I don't think we see, do we see the first time you ever see the show? Can you put us in your, in your heads of like when you saw something close to the production that's going to land on Broadway and what it felt like?

• 25:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, I remember early on, especially remember we saw an early on version of the opening scene, which that alone was, and now there's even more stuff in there, but in London, that, that was the effect that just blew us away. Because you, you see this stuff and we talked to Kate about ideas, but, you know, it's, it's hard to imagine how anyone could pull that off. It just, like, it's just, it feels like a magic trick when you see it. It's pretty incredible. And Ros, like, when you were in a movie or TV...

• 26:25Speaker 06

  Ross and I are so into that world and have grown up with it that I basically know how they're doing everything, whereas this is very alien to me. So it really blows me away when I see it because I truly don't know how they... Now Gary and so I can get, figure out some of it now, but even then it's just, because they have some new, a lot of really new massive illusions. Is that the right term? And in Broadway that there weren't in London that just had my jaw on the floor. I had heard rumors that they were pulling something, gonna do something, we just don't know. Like it's hard to, I don't know, it's pretty, it's been remarkable to watch from that perspective. And then, like

• 27:09Speaker 06

  you were saying, like the show is awesome, but we don't, I love producing the show, but we don't get that experience of seeing it with a crowd, right? And so there's something, seeing this show with a crowd, with fans of the show, seeing them react in real time to the extent that they do has been, I don't know, it's been a really powerful experience for Ross and I.

• 27:33Josh Horowitz?

  So, Justin, without, we don't want to ruin the show because again, it should be experienced, but can you, can you hint a little bit about the types of things in this script that are most challenging for you to execute? I would imagine it's a long, long list, but in general terms, what's the, what's the major challenge for you as a director on something like this?

• 27:53Speaker 06

  Yeah. There were, look, there were a lot of things, but I think some of the, some of the simpler ones that we, were actually hard in some ways and defined how we made the show, and you can see us wrestling with it a bit in this, is just how to do intercutting and how to do match cuts, and which is so a part of the energy and the rhythm of the of the series. And we wanted to have that in the show so that it's driving you forward. And we had to find our own language that did that. And that took a while to figure out, but it's a, I mean, it's, it's a, we've been using three revolves and it enables us to deliver, I mean, what you don't want to do in intercutting is the lights go out and all the actors freeze and do nothing while the other lot are doing their thing and then back and forth. So we found this language and that, that took us quite a long time to figure out how to do that. But it was sort of like a cuckoo clock almost in

• 28:38Speaker 06

  the way that it works, so that it keeps coming at you in the way that the series does and you can sit with these characters and come back. The illusions, I mean, some of it is illusion stuff and some of it is just amazing staging. I mean, some of the illusion guys, I mean, they're credited as illusions, but some of it is just very, very clever. Use of scenery and set and I think to what Sony was saying about everyone coming together. The thing I love most about the show is that a lot of the time when people have done things like that before, there's a gimmick to it. Oh, where everyone's doing video or everyone's doing, you know, suddenly doing this. What we really tried to do is to integrate every part of it and Sony was a huge part of pushing this so that it never felt like it was gratuitous or it was to do it. It feels, I mean, I don't know if you two feel this, it feels like old fashioned filmmaking in some ways.

• 29:23Speaker 06

  It's like there's no CGI, there's no, it's just what you're seeing is happening in front of you and I think that's hugely exciting and what, you know, I love about films of that old genre, but, you know, in time, because it was real and now you see it in front of you and it is extraordinary.

• 29:39Speaker 05

  For the documentary you've just seen, obviously we don't have the edit, we can't edit, we're having to edit in front of an audience live and that's pretty terrifying, putting it out in front of an audience and literally listening and hearing and figuring out what we've got. I mean, that first preview we did in London, I mean, I'm probably exaggerating to make the point, but it was about four hours long or something, it was very, very long. And whilst the audience went wild, we knew we had a huge amount to do. Matt and Ross were in for the first time to see it properly, had loads of notes and

• 30:21Speaker 05

  it was, it was very, very stressful period because we were trying the technology for the first time and a new play in a really small theatre.

• 30:32Speaker 06

  And the train has left the station, the train is going.

• 30:34Speaker 05

  Can't do anything about it, no, and you can't do anything about it and you, you know that you have to go up the following day at the same time and you have to keep doing that. But it was, it was an incredible experience. I mean, in terms of the technology, I think, I've never actually counted, but I know that there are no less than 2,000 lighting and.

• 30:56Speaker 05

  Sound cues, just, that's a lot.

• 31:00Josh Horowitz?

  Sounds like a lot.

• 31:01Speaker 05

  And that's without everything else. I mean, we're talking thousands and thousands of cues from the moment the show starts to the end, and that means we also have, and we haven't credited them enough, the most incredible team behind the stage, who are really as essential as what's happening on stage.

• 31:22Josh Horowitz?

  We also, it's crazy, we haven't even talked about the actors of this, and it's obviously, it takes an exceptional team of actors to perform these roles, and not to mention, some of these characters are very iconic already, and very, very familiar to an audience. Let's start with Victor, or rather, Henry, rather. What were you looking for in your Henry Creel? What was the casting process like?

• 31:45Speaker 06

  It's, I mean, it's always hard to find Henrys, because they are, you need someone who's got the edge, that has that danger, but also has charm, and we saw so many kids, both here and in the UK, and weirdly, they seem to come from little pockets, like Louis, who was so much a part of creating it, because he was so young, he's from Northern Ireland, and he just, we sort of saw him in the line, and went, there's something about that kid. And then he came in, he had this darkness to him, and we were going, does he have charm? And so we brought him back in, and he had done these YouTube clips of him doing monologues from plays, which was so weird, but that was utterly charming, and he has been so

• 32:29Speaker 06

  much a part of creating what that character became, in the way that we workshop, and he really sort of balances this thing, so you do really feel the pathos of an ordinary kid who's going through something.

• 32:41Speaker 05

  It's a good tip for anyone out there who wants to be an actor. Louis may not have got the job without those YouTube clips, because we weren't sure, and then we found these YouTube clips of him doing all these other little characters, and we thought, oh, actually, he could do that. And so then you brought him back in?

• 33:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, completely. I mean, he'd not trained, really. He'd done a little bit. He was on an Irish soap that was, which he plays a bartender and he, you know. But it was very, I mean, it was just fortuitous. And I think all the castings happen like that. It's been quite organic. We've had to go far and wide to try to honor these characters and, and we've just come up with some extraordinary people, most of whom have not done a lot before. I think there's something like seventy percent of the cast, it's their Broadway debut. So it's, it's a massive, and in London, it was most of them, it was the first time in the West End, but there's also a whole lot of kids who'd never been on stage before. There was, I think in London, sixteen was the youngest. And, you know, it's, it's, it's a joy to see, to find these kids and then to see them

• 33:41Speaker 06

  just sort of spring into, you know, I'm hoping, most of them will stay on in our industry. But it's, yeah, it's a joy to find them. And we've been lucky enough in our lives to do that a few times, but this show is something else.

• 33:51Josh Horowitz?

  And then finding folks for, I know it's, it's different actors for this Broadway production, but I mean, I was so impressed by, you know, again, these characters, Hopper and Julia Simba, but they're so ingrained and they're, and for these actors to allude to them and have some kind of mannerisms and reminders, but to do their own thing, that must have been a, a careful dance for you as a director to kind of instruct them and kind of guide them towards just enough, towards familiarity.

• 34:19Speaker 06

  Totally, a total dance. I mean, actually, weirdly, in the production here, there's a, there's a couple of actors who did the very first workshop. And so the problem with when you, when that happens, all you can think about is that actor playing it. And Alison, who's, who's playing Joyce here, had never seen the series. And Ted Sarandos walked up and went, "You are the essence of Joyce." And she was like, I don't know what she's, I don't know, I literally don't know what he's talking about. She's watched it since, she tells me. But it is, it was weird. It's, you know, there is, they're so iconic and, and they ju, they, I mean, some of them, some of the actors had to get, had a, had a process to get there, but, but there were a few like Alison and the others who just, they are the character.

• 34:59Josh Horowitz?

  I find it so fascinating that you guys chose to do this when you did this. You could have waited till after the show was all done and then gone back and told a backstory, but this is happening in real time. We have Stranger Things Five coming very, very soon. And.

• 35:16Josh Horowitz?

  Matt and Ross have agreed to tell everything that happens onstage tonight. Don't worry, no. No, but, I mean, this is gonna be in communication back and forth between that season. I would think there are gonna be things in this show that resonate in a different way after I see Stranger Things 5, and vice versa. So, talk to me a little bit about what that creative dance has been in drafting this.

• 35:39Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, I think that was part of Stephen's original ideas, that something very cool, and I agree about bridging the seasons, that it is, it is in communication a lot with season four, and it's setting up five in a way, but it is gonna be interesting. I think it informs five, if you've seen the play and you're gonna see, and then you watch season five, but then at the same time, if you're seeing the play after you've seen season five, it'll probably play a little bit differently, but it certainly, I mean, Kate can speak to this as well, I mean, you see it briefly in the documentary, where we're trying to figure out how much information to put in this play, because we don't, we don't wanna ruin the season five experience for anyone, and we don't want people to feel

• 36:20Speaker 03

  left out that are unable to get to New York or to London, but at the same time, we want the play to be meaningful and to play a role. So, I think finding that balance took a while, and especially, Kate can speak to that more, but it took a long time to find exactly what that balance is, but we're pretty, we're happy with where it is now.

• 36:40Josh Horowitz?

  What was that bleeped out part, by the way? That little, just could you just, I didn't quite get it. What was the thing that... Oh, it was "bee."

• 36:48Speaker 05

  But I also want to stress that my job was also to encourage it as much as possible to be a play that stood alone, and that if you hadn't seen any of the TV show, you could still get, understand the play. Yes, there are Easter eggs all the way through, but you wouldn't, it wouldn't matter if you didn't know what those Easter eggs were, and I think, I think we've succeeded in that as well.

• 37:18Josh Horowitz?

  Kate, can you elaborate a little bit in terms of the back and forth, and is there anything you guys can say in terms of stuff to pay attention to in the play that will perhaps reap some further rewards in seeing the final season?

• 37:31Speaker 03

  Careful.

• 37:32Speaker 05

  Bee.

• 37:33Josh Horowitz?

  (laughing).

• 37:36Speaker 01

  I mean, I was working on, I was writing the play and writing season five at the same time. And so they're, to me, like, just two pieces of a whole. And they're inextricable from each other. And I think that the experience of consuming both together is gonna be really fun and satisfying to see how connected they are. But, other than that, I literally don't think I can tell you a single thing.

• 38:08Josh Horowitz?

  Guys, do you wanna jump in here? Anything we should look for?

• 38:12Speaker 03

  No, I don't think so.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  No.

• 38:16Speaker 03

  No. I mean, it did, I think part of the challenge, I think what you're seeing in that play is like, we were, Kate was doing five with us, but at a certain point, you were just here doing this while we were, we were filming, and then we were working on finale stuff. And as Matt and I were doing finale, stuff was changing, like, it was, everything was evolving in real time. And I think that's what made it the biggest challenge. Because as we got to script, we realized certain story points weren't, we needed to change things, and then that affected the play, but they were in the middle of doing the play. And so, things just, it was, it was a very close call, as in, the timing was like, a few weeks before the play opened.

• 38:52Speaker 06

  But this is what, this is what Stephen wanted. He wanted this dialogue, so, you know, that was the consequences.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  It was fun.

• 39:00Josh Horowitz?

  Now, in retrospect, it's fun. It was a lot of work, though, wasn't it?

• 39:04Speaker 01

  No. It was fun.

• 39:44Speaker 01

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• 40:16Josh Horowitz?

  I really found it telling when you talked about Matt and Ross having no poker face in watching scenes. Can you elaborate on that? Is that something you've experienced on set?

• 40:26Speaker 01

  It's a nightmare. It's something that I love about them because I also have no poker face. So I feel like there was a lot of nonverbal communication happening between the three of us.

• 40:37Josh Horowitz?

  Well, it's not, no, you have no filter. It's a little different.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Wrong.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  I don't even know.

• 40:49Josh Horowitz?

  Sonia's laughing because it's true.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  That's not true? That's not? Okay, it's true. Fuck it.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  But, no, it's, we've always had, I feel like, I feel like we've always had a really upfront, blunt relationship with each other, which has made things really easy.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  But, yeah, it's horrifying because, I don't know, there's a, there's a certain level of comfort in knowing that they're not, they are not going to pull punches because they can't, they physically can't. Their faces will tell you the truth. And luckily, their voices will also tell you the truth.

• 41:28Speaker 03

  Well, there's also, on the flip side, though, and there's a tendency in writers' rooms for people to be, that we've found, of everyone just being like, "That's a great idea." And everyone's so nice and they want to support each other. But Kate comes in, she's never been in a writers' room on season two, and just doesn't realize that's how people do it. And was, but it was great because like, I need, we need people to be like, "No, that's not a good idea, and I don't like that, and this is why." Not in a mean way, she's trying to be supportive, but I think that's one reason we also trust her with this play, is that she's just very honest with us, and, and she's not afraid to be like, "This doesn't work, and this is better, and, or I'm not there yet, and I can't figure it out." And I think that honesty forces.

• 42:06Speaker 06

  Everyone just to keep trying to be better and better and better.

• 42:09Josh Horowitz?

  Do you guys now look at any of these familiar characters a little bit differently, having had this story told? You look at Hopper and Joyce and Bob, et cetera, with different empathy, different feelings? Do you think the audience will?

• 42:25Speaker 06

  No, I mean, yeah, I think so. I mean, to me, yeah, I mean, it's, I don't know, it's really interesting. I mean, you know, we, having been involved in developing sort of the core concept of, and then Kate, someone who also knows these characters extremely well, and actually having the time spending now, I don't know how long you've spent thinking about and fleshing out these characters and their backstories, and then seeing these actors bring them to life. I mean, it's been a really surreal experience for Ross and I, and we're still kind of processing what that is, because not being there every day, working on, in fact, not being, I mean, we were off making the show, and then having these incredible people develop this and flesh out these characters

• 43:10Speaker 06

  that we came up with like nine years ago. So, I don't know, it has been, it has been for us, I think, illuminating in terms of these characters and where they came from, and some of it, if it didn't make sense to me right away, it does start to make sense with time. So, it's sometimes jarring initially, but then revelatory the more you think about it.

• 43:32Josh Horowitz?

  Well, it speaks volumes that you frankly just agreed to this process and to let this happen. You've been so precious with this baby of yours, Stranger Things. You could have, if you wanted, have, you know, let Netflix make six spinoffs and cartoons and whatever by now, and the fact that you've kind of opened up the aperture a little bit to...

• 43:52Speaker 06

  But this one was easy, because it was, it was, it's, I think it's all about who you're working with. So, it's Steven Daldry, it's Sonia, it's Justin, it's Kate, who, someone we know and work with intimately. So, it was easy. And the other thing I was like, I was gonna say I like about how it came to us is it didn't come from Netflix. It wasn't Netflix's idea. This was Steven's idea. Steven was the one who had to push it and make it happen. They weren't even, you know, it just like, it just, it was, he was passionate about it, and I think that's the key. And then you have something like this, you can have people just churning out stuff to make money and using the name, but that's obviously not what this was. This was Steven fighting to make this happen. I mean, it was surreal.

• 44:34Speaker 06

  That Stephen Daldry wanted to do it. I took a second to understand that, but it came from him. It came from him. And then Kate is, you know, Kate is someone who's just such a huge part of the show and the DNA of the show.

• 44:50Josh Horowitz?

  And it speaks volumes. I know Stephen wanted to be here, couldn't be here tonight, but working with you, Justin, and like pushing yourselves and like you've never done a production like this. No one's really done a production like this. And to kind of like set a new bar for what theater can accomplish in terms of a thriller, a horror, a spectacle is really inspiring to see.

• 45:11Speaker 06

  It was, I mean, the first conversation I had with Stephen was about this, was he said, have you ever been scared by theater? And I, and I sort of thought back, and I had a little bit, but never sort of thought it was possible because you're always safe in some way. But I mean, I was watching the show a couple of nights ago and like it generally jumps you, which is brilliant. And that, you know, and fortunately there were some kids who were sort of six in there who were not, you know, who were like screaming and trying to run out. But

• 45:39Josh Horowitz?

  I jumped at least twice. There are some jump scares. Be prepared.

• 45:44Speaker 06

  But it's a testament to that world. And that's the thing I think we enjoyed the most is we could jump into this imaginary world with these sort of imaginary provocations like, you know, can we get a fully realized ship on stage? And it was just like, how are we going to do that?

• 45:58Josh Horowitz?

  That's not a metaphor, by the way. He's saying an actual ship on stage.

• 46:02Speaker 05

  Talking of metaphors, but I think the other thing that, I mean, that Stephen, when you settled on the story, when it was, that's when he really, really began to, I know what to do because I think we all were really intrigued and excited about having as our protagonist, a young teenage boy who is struggling with the monster that is growing inside him, trying to take over. It's obviously a brilliant metaphor for the world we live in now.

• 46:44Speaker 05

  And crucially, do you care for him? Because he ends up doing some pretty awful things, as we know. But I think we've managed to thread that needle. I think you understand and you care for this little kid who's, you know, ends up doing terrible things, but you can see that it was out of his control.

• 47:10Josh Horowitz?

  So this show is premiering on Broadway tomorrow, as we said. It's obviously continues to have an amazing run in London. I would imagine you continually learn from audiences. It's an evolving thing. It never stops. What, I mean, for those that have seen it in London versus here, is it a markedly different show? What are, how would you?

• 47:28Speaker 06

  Well, something like, the script's about 120 pages and we changed about 100, I think, or something.

• 47:35Josh Horowitz?

  So, yes.

• 47:36Speaker 06

  Which is for different reasons. I mean, the set itself, and I don't know if the documentary quite shows that, but it takes about six months to build from the moment they start building. And so by the time we got to technical rehearsals, if allusions didn't work or something didn't work, we had to sort of fudge it. And so the chance to go back and to kind of redo it. And then we wanted to make it a bit shorter and we wanted to, and Kate and I have had a wonderful time writing for the actors because, you know, different actors bring different things to it. And so that just meant that a process of kind of building it for here and this audience and it's been really exciting watching them. And they do respond to different things to London, which is cool, you know, and we have to be responsive to that because, you know, it's such an alive medium.

• 48:20Speaker 06

  And I mean, it sort of, the documentary gives you a sense of the mentalness of how that, what that is like to do because you are constantly learning and you're, they respond to that. They like that, they don't like that. And then something breaks and then this happens and you're constantly sort of spinning these plates and like just to take one section apart and take four hours and to put it back together. And so we only have a certain amount of those that we can do before we start getting the press in. So it was, it was a very, then it's about prioritizing and going, we're going to look at that bit and that bit will solve it or we're going to cut that scene and that will solve. It's very, I think that probably does give a sense of how mental it is.

• 49:00Speaker 05

  We're a much bigger theatre now, so we've, we had more opportunities to build on some of the physical production. I mean, all I can say to anybody who hasn't seen it is the mind flayer is... It's mind-boggling and mind-blowing. Whereas in London, we love our mind-flayer, don't we? But it's...

• 49:23Speaker 05

  It's sweet in London.

• 49:25Speaker 06

  It's sweet.

• 49:25Josh Horowitz?

  It's a sweet mind-flayer, yeah.

• 49:27Speaker 05

  Whereas here, it's absolutely extraordinary.

• 49:30Speaker 06

  It's extraordinary. And I watch the audience every night, watch that, and I think it is... But that's Desmond. We opened the show in London, and the next day, or a couple of days later, Sonya said, "Let's get back to work." And that was sort of a luxury that you don't get, because producers like Sonya and Netflix don't, you know. They gave us an opportunity to go, "Let's keep inventing, let's keep working this." And that doesn't always happen. Normally, you go, "Did it work? Great, let's just put it up again." So, we went back to work. It was over a year ago now, and so it takes a long time to get it here, and we've done a lot of work on it, and we're really proud of it.

• 50:04Josh Horowitz?

  You guys must get a different kind of sense of satisfaction, Matt, Ross, and Kate, just seeing it with an audience. I mean, you know, you put something out into the world, you can look at Twitter and Instagram and feel it, and you feel a sense, but there's no substitution for hearing an audience, hearing their collective gasps and breath. Can you give me a sense of what it's been like just to, like, live in that live space with this show?

• 50:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, the way that they respond and also don't respond, which is brutal and instructive, as Stephen would say, "Tonight was a very instructive show." How illuminating, which means bad. But also, such a shortcut. I mean, writing on your own is such a lonely, you know, Ouroboros endeavor of just, you know, constantly second-guessing yourself and wondering and freaking out and having

• 51:09Speaker 01

  immediate feedback of knowing if something works or doesn't is a totally different way to do the job. And it's so alive, and the audience is truly... A part of every performance, we are in total conversation with every single person in the theater of the actors feed off the energy of the audience, the audience feeds off the energy of the actors, and it's so like inexpressibly beautiful to see that exchange happening. There's no substitute for it. And it's, yeah, it's the laughs and the gasps and all of that, but it's also the silence when you know that you've got

• 51:52Speaker 01

  them. And there, and there's no, nobody's coughing, nobody's moving, you know, people have to pee, you know, people are, you know, have allergies or whatever, and everybody is just holding their breath in a scene. That's, I mean, there's nothing like it.

• 52:07Josh Horowitz?

  Yeah, I will forever now take to my grave the coughing note in all Q and As I ever have for the rest of time, Sonya, I'm gonna be listening for that cough.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  Don't cough.

• 52:16Speaker 05

  I know, I sort of regret saying it actually, but it's true.

• 52:20Josh Horowitz?

  I also love seeing in the documentary, some of the actors from the show, seeing their counterparts. It must have been mind blowing for them. Was there any postmortem, further stuff we didn't see on screen of talking to David or Matthew, et cetera, about what it was like for them to see their characters realized in this way?

• 52:37Speaker 03

  I don't, you know, I, you'd have, this will have to be on your podcast.

• 52:41Josh Horowitz?

  Okay.

• 52:41Speaker 03

  You gotta talk, talk to them, I don't know. But no, I think, I think it's for them, it's the same for us. I think it's a very surreal experience, you know, so, I don't know. I just know they love the play. I know they love the play.

• 52:53Josh Horowitz?

  It is also striking, just to note, so many of your actors on the show have great experience onstage in the past than even currently. I mean, Sadie is currently on Broadway right now, her show's fantastic.

• 53:04Speaker 05

  Actually, she's seeing our show tonight.

• 53:05Josh Horowitz?

  There you go. Sadie, I know Maya's gonna do Off-Broadway soon. Is there any kind of commonality on the, of the actors that like, is it just happenstance that so many of them have that, that part of their interest?

• 53:17Speaker 03

  I think it's, I mean, a lot of them, Caleb was on in Lion King, and then Sadie, I mean, she's on now on Broadway, but she did Annie, and so I think Gaden Les Mis, and I'm, Gaden is just a Broadway freak, and.

• 53:32Speaker 03

  I think, but I think part of it is just the training that, that being on the theater gives to these children at that age in terms of like, when we went out, we weren't looking for Broadway kids, but they would always stand out automatically just because I think the rigor, I mean, Justin can speak to it more, but it's like that rigor of like, of doing it day after day and hitting your marks and saying your cues and, and hitting all these, getting every line right. I think it just trains them in a way that's just, really prepares them in a, an amazing way for a screen.

• 54:03Josh Horowitz?

  I mean, especially when we were casting 11, 12, 13-year-old kids, you, you know, most of them, they can't focus for more than 10, 15 seconds, but Broadway, yeah, does train them, or it attracts the kind of kids who are gonna make it and Broadway are able to do that. And they were able, they're able to stand on their marks and so on. You might as well be talking about- Sadie's amazing. By the way, we saw John Proctor yesterday. Sadie's amazing. So good, right? If you, you gotta check that out. Would you, it's cool to say this as you just started like mounting this on Broadway, would you do another play? Would you, is there another Stranger Things play in Kate? Ready to write another play?

• 54:38Speaker 01

  What?

• 54:42Speaker 06

  Kate should.

• 54:43Speaker 01

  I'm very tired, guys. I'm gonna go on vacation. Um, I can't, I can't speak to that. I know there's some crazy rumor floating around that this is the first part of a trilogy, which I cannot confirm or deny. No, I'm denying it. It's not real. That's fake. That's not real.

• 55:06Speaker 06

  I think it's cool, though, the kind of, the conversation between the screen and the stage, and I think the more of that that happens, I think is good. And so much of the rigor of what you guys do in terms of structure is useful for us. It's because, because particularly when we're dealing with problems like, we need a scene this long because we've got to do this crazy set change behind, and you want that to be meaningful and to, to not feel like filler. And I think the rigor of what television writing makes you do in terms of that is so useful. So I hope, I hope there's more of it.

• 55:39Josh Horowitz?

  Would you ever, ever go the other way and adapt this for the screen?

• 55:45Josh Horowitz?

  Anybody, would you make this into TV, film, any other medium, this story?

• 55:52Speaker 03

  You answer. I think, well, I think right now the goal is just, I think we want it to, we want these to run for a long time in London and on Broadway and hopefully, hopefully elsewhere, right, Sonia? So, well, that's where it's going to live for now, but we're excited this documentary's out in the world now and, yeah, hopefully, people just keep going to see it.

• 56:14Josh Horowitz?

  As we wrap up, we've kind of alluded to a lot of things to be proud of. Anybody can take this. What are you most proud of, of small, big moments, just getting it done? What do you take a source of pride in as we're on the eve of this Broadway opening for Stranger Things?

• 56:29Speaker 05

  Seventy-five percent of our audience are first-time theatregoers.

• 56:38Speaker 06

  And we, and we, we can sometimes be seen as a dying medium and then you have this, you have that sort of statistic. And if they go and see one more play, then we've, we've helped the whole ecology of Broadway, of London, but of theatre through, you know, wherever this show goes. It's, it's an astonishing feat to get people into the theatre who've never been before.

• 57:00Josh Horowitz?

  It's huge. It's a, as I said before, it's a hell of an achievement, guys, and we really appreciate you sneaking away from the theatre with less than 24 hours to go. You guys have had a really cool sneak peek at this production. Spread the good word. Stranger Things, the first shadow, opening night. Wish these guys luck and spread the good word of the show. See it if you can. Thank you, guys, for coming out. Thanks, everybody.

• 57:46Speaker 04

  You've got your favorite blanket, a freshly poured drink, and a cold case burning a hole in your streaming queue. You're not just watching true crime, you're running the investigation from the comfort of your couch. Welcome to Murder She Watched, the podcast where we recap, dissect, and slightly overanalyze some of the best and craziest true crime documentaries on our favorite streamers. Did the spouse do it? Why is the shady neighbor wearing leather gloves in July? Why did this guy agree to be interviewed in this documentary? We ask the tough questions that you're often just screaming at your TV. So every week, we break down the twists, red herrings, and absurd documentaries that have kept you up all night.

• 58:30Speaker 04

  It's high drama, cozy vibes, and absolute couch detective energy. Grab your throw blanket and hit subscribe. Search Murder She Watched wherever you listen to podcasts, and let's solve this thing together.