Even more than the stage design or special effects, diehard fans of the Duffer brothers’ series will be intrigued by the plot, which might just hold the key to Stranger Things’s epic ending. Set in Indiana 20 years before season one of the Netflix show, the play focuses on the life of Henry as a shy, awkward teen. Soon after he moves to Hawkins with his family, pets start winding up dead and the static radio begins going haywire, among other decidedly odd occurrences. Against the backdrop of this chaos, Creel is falling in love with Patty Newby (Ella Karuna Williams), the school principal’s adopted daughter. “The story is kind of a love triangle between Henry, his developing powers, and this girl. Everyone is pulling him in a different direction,” says Trefry. “But it’s still an ensemble story. We’re tracking Joyce and Hopper and Bob, too.”
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The aforementioned trio spend much of the play working together as amateur sleuths, trying to figure out what on earth has made Hawkins suddenly go haywire. Bob, of course, is in love with Joyce (alas, it’s unrequited), while Joyce and Hopper seem to have their own thing going on. “I think that Joyce is a really interesting person,” says Isabella Pappas, playing the character made famous by Winona Ryder. “In the TV series, we meet her in the deep end. She’s having a mental breakdown, her son’s missing, she’s in a manic state. But in the play, we can rewind back and see what she was like when she was 18.”