Is it a musical?” was Kate Trefry’s first thought when Matt and Ross Duffer, the sibling duo behind the Netflix horror hit, Stranger Things, asked her to write the script for a new stage adaptation. “Now I understand how obnoxious that question is,” laughs Trefry, speaking over Zoom on a break from back-to-back rehearsals for that same play, which opens this week in London’s West End.
The idea of a Stranger Things play was first floated five years ago as a “mad fantasy” by director Stephen Daldry, whose smash hits on stage include An Inspector Calls, Billy Elliot and The Inheritance and who is helming this new stage production. Even producer Sonia Friedman, renowned for making the impossible possible in productions such as Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, said Daldry’s proposal had been a “curveball”. After all, how does one bring the dark, CGI-rendered underworld of Stranger Things to the stage without losing any of its power – or its chills? How does one keep it exciting and fresh?
