NEXT-LEVEL STRANGE

HOW STRANGER THINGS SCALED UP FOR BROADWAY

- STORY: ERIK PIEPENBURG / NYT

The cold open: In television, it's a scene that begins an episode before the title sequence, often without leading characters but almost always with foreshadowing hooks to confound or set a mood.

Theatre doesn't really have much of a cold open tradition. The expectation is that you introduce the main characters and get moving.

Not so for Stranger Things: The First Shadow. The new Broadway play, based on Netflix's hit horror-science fiction series, starts with a bold five-minute cold open of loud gunfire, marauding Demogorgons and no leading characters. It's a coup de théâtre, and it swiftly signals that the lead producers, Broadway heavy-hitter Sonia Friedman and Netflix, are betting their big-money gamble will knock theatregoers' socks right off.

"We always wanted to open with a big scene and a big moment, something that's going to shock the audience," said Ross Duffer, who, with his twin brother, Matt Duffer, created the Stranger Things series. Both are credited as the play's creative producers.

The play is a prequel to the 1980s-set TV series, and gives an origin story about a shy teenager named Henry Creel (played by Louis McCartney) who became an important figure in Season 4. It's set in small-town Hawkins, Indiana, mostly in 1959.

But the prologue takes place in 1943, and acts as an omen of the supernatural elements that drive the series, including the Upside Down, a sinister realm that parallels our own. Friedman credited the cold open to Stephen Daldry, the Tony-winning director who, with Justin Martin, directed Stranger Things: The First Shadow on Broadway.

"The instinct of most directors would be to leave that to a little bit later and build up to it," Friedman said during an interview at the Marquis Theatre, where the show is in previews before opening on April 22. "Stephen was like, no, no, I want it right at the beginning."