NEW YORK, June 8 (UPI) — Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai, Monster High, That Girl Lay Lay and All That actress Gabrielle Nevaeh says starring in Broadway’s Stranger Things prequel, The First Shadow, helped her check two things off her professional wish list.
“This is the first time that I ever got truly emotional when I heard that I got a job because I just never dreamed that i could ever be a part of the Stranger Things universe or be on Broadway, and I somehow got the best of all worlds,” Nevaeh told UPI in a recent phone interview.
“I figured that maybe the Duffer Brothers would see my audition and consider me for something else, but certainly not Stranger Things: The First Shadow.
The blockbuster play follows the teen versions of Joyce (Alison Jaye), Hopper (Burke Swanson) and Bob Newby (Juan Carlos) — beloved adult characters from the Netflix series — 30 years before the denizens of Hawkins, Ind., learn a shadowy government agency is trying to weaponize some kids’ supernatural powers.
In the stage drama — which goes into Sunday’s Tony Awards ceremony with five nominations — Nevaeh plays a new Hawkins heroine, Patty Newby.
Patty is the adopted sister of Bob, who will eventually grow up to be the kind-hearted Radio Shack worker (played by Sean Astin) who dies selflessly protecting Winona Ryder’s version of Joyce from Demo-Dogs in Season 2 of the sci-fi series.
“She’s a warrior. Patty has had a really hard life,” Nevaeh said.
“She doesn’t have anyone,” she added. “Bob’s at the age where he’s obsessed with Joyce. Her dad doesn’t like her. She doesn’t have a mom. She doesn’t have friends, so she is a loner. She’s alone, but she is an optimist and she tries to make the best out of her situation.”
These are some of the reasons why she reaches out to standoffish Henry Creel (Tony-nominated Louis McCartney), a troubled outsider who arrives in town with his family.
Viewers of the Netflix show are wary of Henry, however, knowing he will eventually kill his family and become the powerful villain Vecna (played in the series by Jamie Campbell Bower). He is only starting to understand his abilities in the play.
“We get to see her nobility really shine through her relationship with Henry Creel who we know is Vecna and we get to see her heroism and the goodness that can be found in the darkest moments,” Nevaeh said.
“When I was developing Patty, [I thought], it’s so easy for it to be the ‘I can fix him story,’ and it’s also easy for Patty to take the route of, ‘OK, I give up,’ especially when she finds out that Henry truly is not normal.”
What was most interesting to Nevaeh to explore was how the teen misfits truly connect about the bad parts of their lives.
“Patty sees Henry in a way that nobody else does and Henry sees Patty in a way that no one else does and they kind of need each other because there’s no one else like them,” Nevaeh said.
“No one else can relate to their situation. No one else knows what it’s like to be rejected by every piece of your life. Patty tries to give Henry a sense of belonging and Henry is the first person to ever see Patty and accept her for who she is.”
Both the stage production and TV show strive to authentically recreate the atmosphere of a small town in their respective eras.
“The television series does an excellent job of showcasing things that were happening in the 1980s, whether it was politically, socially, economically,” Nevaeh said.
“We do a great job with Stranger Things: The First Shadow of touching on 1959,” she added. “We don’t necessarily go deep into it, but the undercurrent of the story is a little bi-racial girl falling in love with a little White boy in the 1950s and what does that look like? We can explore those tensions through a few of the other characters and really highlight the romance of the time that was 1959.”
In addition to enjoying nightly standing ovations, cast members of the play also find crowds of adoring fans outside the theater stage door waiting for them.
“It’s been absolutely incredible,” Nevaeh said.
“Lots of kids are coming now because it’s summer time, but I have quite a few people who have come to see the show because they knew me from my time on Nickelodeon, which is a beautiful arc for me to have grown up being a child star and then doing something as important and profound as Stranger Things: The First Shadow and seeing those fans carry over.
“It’s just mind-blowing,” she added. “I’m eternally grateful for the incredible response that we’ve been having.”
