In this video, go behind the scenes of Broadway’s ‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow’ as award-winning costume designer Brigitte Reiffenstuel breaks down the visual world of the highly anticipated stage prequel. Set in 1959 Hawkins, Indiana, the show explores the origins of Henry Creel (Vecna) and features younger versions of familiar characters like Joyce, Hopper, Bob, Karen, and Ted. Brigitte reveals how the costumes reflect a different era while still honoring the spirit of the Netflix series. With over 500 costumes in the production, Brigitte explains the creative and technical challenges of designing for the stage—where durability is key for a show that runs eight times a week. She shares how character-specific choices, like Joyce Maldonado’s tomboyish corduroy and stripes or Henry’s mother-selected schoolwear, help tell each story. She walks us through key pieces like Patty’s vibrant yellow coat and the iconic hazmat suits, designed with “the whitest white you can find without it being fluorescent.” Lighting plays a crucial role in these choices, and Brigitte highlights her close collaboration with lighting designer Jon Clark to ensure every costume reads from the stage to the very last row.
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00:00I do remember the Duffers telling us that there needed to be more blood.
00:05So Stephen Daudry went mad.
00:09It's not real.
00:13And normal.
00:15We are moving from the 1980s to 1959.
00:19It's all about creating a picture.
00:22I love this yellow coat. It's really very 50s.
00:25It's a very big play.
00:27It's not real.
00:28You are the Shadow.
00:34I'm Henry Creel.
00:40Stranger Things, the first Shadow, the play, is a pre-sequel to Stranger Things that was created by the Duffer brothers.
00:47We are moving from the 1980s to 1959.
00:51We got Joyce, we got Hopper, we got Bob, Karen, Ted.
00:55We had just seen them basically in high school.
00:56The Western show is a little bit smaller.
01:00Kate, our writer, she's been sort of developing the story further with the Duffer brothers, with Stephen Daudry, with Justin Martin.
01:06The main story is about Henry Creel, who we know from the Netflix series, sort of an outsider.
01:12His mother is a pill-popping Stepford wife.
01:16His dad is an alcoholic.
01:18You know, nobody really dresses exactly like that for high school.
01:21It's almost like his mother chooses the clothes for him.
01:24Henry forms a bond with a girl called Patti Newby.
01:27Patti is just not really allowed to fully be herself.
01:33So she dresses rather modestly.
01:36She's neither feminine or masculine or boyish.
01:41But there's something extremely charming about her, which I try to sort of bring into the clothes.
01:46So these two outfits are Patti.
01:48I love this yellow coat that she wears.
01:50It's really very 50s.
01:52In a very dark scene, so it's just also a pop of color.
01:55This one here is for the beginning of part two.
01:58There is a lot of blood that happens in that scene.
02:01So she puts on a lab coat in order to protect this outfit from the blood.
02:05But it's just a very sort of typical Patti look.
02:08This is a leather finish.
02:10We had them in cotton, but the blood got on it and we couldn't get rid of the blood.
02:14So basically we had to find one that was made in leather.
02:17It's a very big play.
02:18Base costume is about 200, 220 plus.
02:22As it's for stage, you have to make covers.
02:25So you have the base costume plus two covers, which takes the numbers into 500 plus.
02:31For stage, it's very important that everything has got a certain durability.
02:36Eight shows a week times, I don't know, 350 days.
02:41It's, you know, things have to be made in a rather very durable way.
02:45How I really like to get into a project is I like to do my own drawings.
02:49It's all about creating a picture.
02:51It's night, it's day, it's cold, it's hot.
02:54Then I also look at which character interacts with whom.
02:58What sort of goes with what, what clashes with what in a good way.
03:03When I had my first meeting with Stephen Daldry, he wasn't really interested in some sort of period drama.
03:09He told me to watch Rebel Without a Cause.
03:12Dad, you told me.
03:13You said you want me to tell the truth.
03:15Now, didn't you say that?
03:17So Joyce was just lovely to do.
03:19In the Netflix, she likes her khakis.
03:22She likes her stripes.
03:24Here is more Joyce research, basically.
03:27Chicks, corduroys, berry colors.
03:30Hey, I'm Allison Jay, and I play Joyce Maldonado in Stranger Things, The First Shadow.
03:34She's always a little bit scruffy.
03:36Yeah.
03:36She's really cool, and things kind of look good on her.
03:39But she's not really like, for example, you know, Karen, who's our boss girl.
03:43Yes, yes, who's our perfect little Polly Pocket.
03:45That's right.
03:46She is a tomboy, in a way.
03:47That's her appeal.
03:48There is a tomboy energy in the shapes that allow me, also as Allison, is very close to who Joyce is.
03:54I've been noticing, like, physically how I stand has changed because of the costumes.
03:58This is actually a picture from Rebel Without a Course.
04:01You've got Natalie Wood here.
04:02Lovely suede mustard jacket with little sort of burgundy pedal pushers.
04:07So we found a really lovely mustard color country and western jacket, and I made her little sort of burgundy jeans.
04:15Obviously, they have to look good.
04:17They can't drown your shape.
04:20However, they still have to look 50s.
04:22So we found a really good way of, you know, the upper part to be more fitted.
04:26However, we left the leg a little bit more sort of grungy, I could say.
04:31Even when all of the other women are in, like, wild colors and beautiful skirts and dresses, I always have either an overall or a pant.
04:38We've got a little vintage belt here.
04:39We've got good socks.
04:41The hat is, we found it online, and I believe that there is one lady who knits them, and she's unbelievably excited that this is in the show.
04:50There's such a massive responsibility taking on a character like this.
04:54But the gorgeous thing is they meet her in this show, 40s, 50s, as a mother.
04:58So I'm not the exact replica of what that is.
05:01So there is so much freedom to go, wait, let me open this door for you and show you how else to see her.
05:08I think that that was one of the most exciting things that I could really bring maybe to the table.
05:13Take the characters further.
05:15For example, Claudia Henderson, the character of Claudia Henderson.
05:17We don't really know much about her, so I put her in a sort of a Girl Scout outfit, and I created this knitted jumper that's got Prancer the cat on it.
05:28Okay, here is the cat jumper that I did.
05:31It's changed a little bit since I did the drawing, and these two looks were combined.
05:35This is a photo of the London cost, just so you can see the jumper here rather clearly.
05:39A sample of the knit and her fabrics.
05:42This is the Claudia Prancer knitted jumper that started with a bit of a smaller image, then I went larger, it was too large, and then basically we came up with this.
05:52And I'm really happy to say that this reads really well from far.
05:56You just immediately think, oh my god, there's Claudia, she's obsessed, you know, she's obsessed with the cat.
06:01I got in touch with Amy Paris, who is the costume designer for season three and four.
06:05I got some images from Amy and some advice.
06:10We tried to recreate them, however, we made them, we pushed them a little bit as it's stage.
06:16And for stage, the silhouettes are just a little bit enhanced, and the colors are maybe a tiny bit stronger.
06:23The color scheme for the Hawkins High School, I adopted for the varsity jacket for Ted, and the cheerleader outfit for Karen.
06:31Oh yes, Karen and Ted, those two just sort of dress matchy-matchy.
06:37We were very careful just to go and get the right green and the right white and the right orange.
06:41Here is Karen Walker.
06:43Basically, she's a little bit of a Barbie.
06:45She is a cheerleader.
06:46This is basically the research I have for that.
06:49She is a cheerleader right in the beginning of the play, and he's really connected to his varsity jacket.
06:54He basically ever gets out of it.
06:56She also is in a pink jumpsuit.
06:59These are the colors for the pink jumpsuit.
07:02Cerise, I call it, with this mint green.
07:05Weird, but so 50s.
07:07This is the great love story that starts in high school, and then, of course, that carries through to Netflix.
07:12He's become a little more boring, but she's still that sort of little Barbie.
07:16This one here is the sort of Sue look.
07:19We don't have a lot of girls in trousers, choices in trousers.
07:23The other one who is sort of towards that way is Sue.
07:26So I put her in culottes.
07:28Basically, this ensemble you can use as a sort of all-in-one with buttons together, and at a later stage, we take it apart.
07:35These two are a couple, you know.
07:37These colors don't necessarily, they're not really matching, but there's something appealing about the combination of the whole thing.
07:45You will see this sort of color combination a lot.
07:48Well, I'm obsessed with lighting, and luckily, John Clarke, our amazing lighting designer, has got a lot of patience.
07:54There are a few scenes where it was really, really crucial to go and work together.
07:59I looked at the hazmat suits from Stranger Things.
08:03You know, these hazmets appear over and over again.
08:05So it really needed to be something that you could enhance with lighting, or they weren't really going to be very intrusive in a scene.
08:14So these are the hazmat suits in season one to four.
08:18Here are white hazmat suits.
08:21Also, there were some yellow hazmat suits in the series.
08:24So initially, I thought maybe create a sort of a 1950s hazmat suit in yellow.
08:29However, white was going to be a little more neutral.
08:32You could bring it up with the lighting or have it more in the background.
08:37We were trying to source a fabric, basically a plastic, that was extremely light and extremely white under the lights.
08:45We've chosen this fabric in connection with John Clarke, the lighting designer.
08:48They're made in plastic that is really great under the lights.
08:53It's like the widest white you can find without it being fluorescent and glowing in the dark.
08:58These glow in the dark, little strips here.
09:00You've got matching boots, matching gloves, and the helmet, which has got an internal light and an external light.
09:06So you get a face.
09:07It's a long way to the last row.
09:09You really need to heighten colors and design in a way for stage.
09:15Each scene has got a sort of an identity.
09:17You have the play within the play.
09:18The students put on a play called The Dark of the Moon, and that is sort of feed through the whole storyline.
09:25I felt very strongly when we developed it that it should be quite different to the rest.
09:30So the play is in black and white.
09:33The scenery is black and white.
09:34The costumes are black and white.
09:36Just to make sure the audience understands, okay, this is a costume within the play.
09:41Well, this is one of the play costumes.
09:44There are two of these costumes.
09:45One of them is just in white without the blood stain.
09:48We just basically based it on some material just to show Stephen and Justin, the directors,
09:54okay, is the blood in the right position?
09:56Another designer basically said to me, oh, I love the way you've done the blood.
10:00It's really good.
10:02Which really, you know, those kids might have done it that way.
10:04They might have just added patches of fabric instead of just, you know, having it painted.
10:08Dark of the Moon is set in the Smoky Mountains in the sort of late 30s, early 40s.
10:14All the costumes were basically, we printed them.
10:16I was very inspired by American quilts.
10:20I'm Juan Carlos, and I play Bob Newby.
10:22So Juan is basically in the play, and he's a light and sound guy in the play.
10:27God, I love this coat.
10:28It's not easy to wear, is it?
10:30You know, beauty is pain.
10:31I think the duffers have Christian at the spiky coat, which is basically Bob's coat for the play.
10:37It's in a sort of a fake fur, and I've turned the fake fur upside down in order to sort of make it spiky looking.
10:42And I think that this is having an ouching in season five.
10:45I remember the first time I put this on, it blew my mind.
10:48I just started, and I remember thinking, I can't wait for everyone else in rehearsals to see this.
10:52To see this, yeah.
10:53But you know what?
10:54I think we should try the antlers, because you had a problem with them the other day, didn't you?
10:58How many times have we had to go through kind of changing this?
11:01Yeah.
11:02But now they kind of fit perfect.
11:03I run on, I tell Joyce, I can do the part.
11:05I run off, and I have about maybe five seconds to get into the coat and get into the antlers.
11:10And I have our wonderful wardrobe person, Amelia, back there holding the two straps open.
11:15And come on, get in it!
11:16And I just run out.
11:17This is fast change hell.
11:19Costumes on, off, magnets, poppers.
11:22It is a continuous thing.
11:24The reason it's so relentless in that pace is because this doesn't play out like a typical play.
11:28There's no long monologues, or it plays out like an episode of the series.
11:32Most scenes are one minute long, and it's almost as if we're cutting from one scene to the next.
11:36So we as actors have to keep that energy as we're going to be able to continue.
11:39It's quite cinematic, actually, in a way.
11:42I think it redefines theater.
11:43Yeah, I think it does, yeah.
11:45So this is how I start the research.
11:47This is Bob from the series.
11:49Next is the drawing.
11:50So I found this image of this college guy in shorts.
11:53So I thought that this is, like, absolutely perfect for Bob.
11:56Sort of an untrendy, awkward guy who is in love with Joyce.
11:59The world sees him as just a Clark Kent.
12:01The reason why Clark Kent can take off his glasses and he's Superman is because he's just a nobody.
12:05But he knows deep down he's Superman.
12:06And I think here he has to discover that he's Superman.
12:10Something happens at the end of Act 1 that really changes Bob.
12:13And we joke about it a little bit.
12:14He's got Act 2 pants.
12:16They're very similar to his shorts, but they're pants.
12:18And he kind of matures into himself.
12:20By the end of the play, you see a very different version of Bob.
12:24We have a sort of a little bit of a dream sequence.
12:28You know, Henry takes Patty on a little bit of a journey finding out about her mom.
12:33It was really a bit of a gift to go and create costumes for that.
12:38These are the showgirls and the showboys.
12:41I love a bit of glitz.
12:43It's a really visual number.
12:45It's very different to everything else in the play.
12:47This was the color inspiration for the whole showboy, showgirl scene for that church dream sequence.
12:55There's nothing that's more Las Vegas than that.
12:57The fabric that I used for that scene really comes from Patty's mom in London.
13:02I used the fabric for Patty's mom in London, but it was so amazing under the lights that I thought,
13:08well, why not do a whole scene in that fabric?
13:10Showgirls usually sort of walk down a step or they walk across the stage.
13:13These are in a full-on dance number.
13:16All the feathers need to be specially wired in order to, you know, give them a great durability, not to bend.
13:23You know, we had feathers dyed in two different colors.
13:26We put the feathers together, we put the fabric together,
13:29and the result was sort of this really beautiful pinky, corally vibe.
13:35The back color is a sort of darker color, and then you have a more pink color in the front,
13:40and together we achieved the sort of color that I was looking for.
13:45There's a lot of trial and error just to go and figure that out.
13:48And also about the headdress is that this section here has to be really light.
13:52This has been in development for quite a while, this costume.
13:56There's one image that I came across that I thought, oh my god, that is like so perfect.
14:02Basically showgirls on the way home.
14:04After the dream sequence, you have a scene where Patty's mom makes an appearance,
14:09and in the background you have all these showgirls.
14:11And instead of having them in like full attire still, we put some sort of vintage coats on them.
14:18This is a vintage coat, we've got quite a few of those.
14:21Fake furs, we've got leopard, we've got brown furs.
14:25I mean, for me it's like immediately American, Las Vegas.
14:29Having the Netflix to jump off was really, in a way, a challenge.
14:34It was really important to study, for example, Hopper.
14:37Things didn't go quite right for him in the 80s, however in the 50s,
14:40he's this sort of all-American bloke.
14:42He likes masculine clothes, he likes his Hawaiian shirts.
14:46Here is Hopper in the Netflix.
14:48You know, it's looking scruffy, always sort of in a slightly bad mood.
14:52However, in the 50s, the future looked bright.
14:56So I tried to bring that, you know, very blokey look into this.
15:01Layering, checks, denims, leathers.
15:05Hi, my name is Burke Swanson and I'm playing James Hopper Jr.
15:08This is the look for the dad machine, which is...
15:12The Directional Antenna Device.
15:14Oh yeah, I knew that.
15:15All Hopper's items were bought.
15:17I don't know why that happened, but it's just, this is just how it panned out.
15:21It's quite important that in that scene, we have a lot of color, because the scene is very darkly lit.
15:27Again, I've sort of tried to go and balance the colors in a sort of appealing way,
15:31but really keeping the identity of each actor.
15:34Our set is so fluid in so many ways, and so we have had to find different ways of suggesting
15:39whether we're outside, inside, what the temperature is, what the time of year is,
15:42and so obviously the jacket helps with that.
15:44You don't want to really say too much what happens,
15:46but the jacket comes off and something happens, which requires flame-proofing.
15:51I shan't say anymore.
15:52And we got the blue jeans, again, they're sort of repro jeans.
15:55We got the boots, and we got a couple of t-shirts.
15:58Because it's so many layers, you see so many different versions of the same costume,
16:02which is really helpful for the character.
16:04When we see the TV show, you know, we see their cuts and bruises sort of get worse and worse over there,
16:09and what we've been able to find here is a way of showcasing the stress of the characters
16:15as the layers begin to come off.
16:17So it starts with the jacket, then it comes off, and then we pull up the sleeves
16:21so that we can see all of the different marks and bruises,
16:24and by the end we're all just, you know, sweating and running around.
16:27Let me talk about blood.
16:28I do remember the duffers telling us that there needed to be more blood,
16:34so Steve and Audrey went mad.
16:36Blood is everywhere, and obviously blood gets on everywhere,
16:40so you have to source the fabric, you have to test them for blood,
16:43you have to see how does the fabric stand up to this sort of, you know,
16:48maintenance to the permanent washing.
16:50And you will have maybe 10 samples of a white lab coat,
16:54and that is going to be put through the wringer.
16:57You will put the blood on it, you will send it to the dry cleaner,
16:59you will wash it, you will just see what happens to it
17:02in order to go and find the right consistency for the blood and the right fabric.
17:06These items are going to have a lot of wear and tear,
17:08which actually is really quite beautiful.
17:11Absolutely, I mean, you were so kind to give me the Red Wing boots.
17:14The more that I wear these, the more that it feels lived in,
17:18and a very actor thing, but, you know, just feeling like that is the character.
17:20This is like for hunting, so you would go out and put your game into the back pockets.
17:26It's a very subtle touch, just by proxy of it being the jacket,
17:29but it does feel, remind us that we're in a very rural community in the 1950s.
17:35Hopper, in our story, is not someone fighting demogorgons
17:39and, like, traveling to Russia accidentally.
17:41The Hopper that we know is afraid of his own blood.
17:44There's a lot of stuff going on at home,
17:45and I think it's not lost on me that this is probably not my jacket.
17:50This is probably my dad's jacket.
17:51And here is the iconic Hawaiian shirt.
17:54I had to have a Hawaiian shirt in it.
17:56I thought I'm going to bring that in in the 50s
17:58and have a 50s version of this sort of iconic Hawaiian shirt.
18:02And usually they're in cotton,
18:04but we went for a reproduction that is in rayon.
18:08It just has a much more beautiful drape.
18:10So when he runs on and he jumps on the bar,
18:12it's got a sort of a really nice movement about it.
18:14So much of what we remember about Hopper is what he wears.
18:18I think that opening shot of season one is so important
18:20because it is simply him getting ready for the day.
18:23You know, what we get to do here telling the story, you know, in 1959
18:26is explore a totally different version of this character
18:29and where does they start.
18:30So all these seeds that get planted here
18:32will get completed in season five.
18:34That's still being created.
18:35And this being so irrevocably linked to season five,
18:38we didn't want to diminish the story that was already being told.
18:41We wanted to add to it.
18:42I love this moment.
18:43To finally see everything together.
18:45It's a little nerve-wracking, but also it's really exciting.
18:49You can do some painting, you can do some distressing,
18:52add a pop of color, see all the work that every single department has put into it.
18:57You just pull it all together.
18:59It's really one of the most satisfying moments.
19:08I'm Henry Creel.