*Stranger Things: The First Shadow* arrives in New York at the St. James Theatre as a stage prequel to the Netflix series, built from a story by the Duffer Brothers with playwright Kate Trefry and collaborators. The script turns the franchise’s backstory into live performance, tracing earlier events in Hawkins and the forces that shape the world viewers later recognize. After its London debut, the production’s Broadway run marks a shift in how streaming-era mythology is treated as repertory material for the theater. Its claim to canon status makes the adaptation feel less like a spinoff and more like narrative infrastructure.