THE COMPLETE TIMELINE OF EVENTS IN HAWKINS FROM 1943 TO THE MID-1970s (The Play: The First Shadow)

First, before we begin, a small note. The play has two versions, premiered in two locations: London, UK, and Broadway, USA. Because the content of the two plays is not exactly the same, I will annotate the time points where there are differences for everyone to easily follow.

The story opens in 1943, amidst World War II. The US military conducts a top-secret experiment called Project Rainbow, with the ambition of using electromagnetic energy to bend light, making a warship invisible to radar (inspired by the real-life event, the M-o-n-t-a-u-k project).

The experiment was technically successful, but the outcome was not as intended. The ship not only became invisible but was ripped from reality and fell into Dimension X (the precursor to The Upside Down). In that hellscape, a Demogorgon appeared and massacred the entire crew.

When the ship returned to the real world, only one person survived: the captain—Dr. Brenner’s biological father. However, he was no longer the same. His blood type had completely changed, and his body was infected with the dark matter particles of the Mind Flayer. Here we have the first difference between the two versions of the play:

• London Version (Original): Immediately after returning, in his final moments, Brenner Sr. recounted the entire horrific truth about the “other side” to Brenner Jr. before passing away. This dying wish obsessed Brenner, leading him to dedicate his life to continuing his father’s research in Nevada.

• Broadway Version (US): Brenner’s father did not die immediately. He fell into a vegetative state (similar to Terry Ives later on), living in agony supported by machines, but his mind was now controlled by the Mind Flayer. Brenner Jr. kept his father alive in secret for years to serve as a “conduit” for future experiments.

Jumping to the early 1950s, at a research facility in Nevada, scientists successfully extracted the Mind Flayer particles from Brenner Sr.’s body and contained them in a special box. A Russian spy planted in the project stole this box to defect but, for unknown reasons, died near a desolate cave system.

Fate unintentionally brought young Henry Creel (age 8) playing nearby to find the box. And childish curiosity led to disaster: Henry opened the lid, inadvertently letting the dark matter particles escape immediately, invading his body, changing his blood structure, and erasing his memory of the event. Henry disappeared for 12 hours (pulled into Dimension X) on his birthday and left his toy binoculars in the cave. Upon his return, Henry began to change.

In 1958, at a school in Nevada, Henry caused a terrifying accident to a classmate. (The London version states he broke the boy’s arm, while the Broadway version states he blinded the boy). The Creel family, terrified, decided to move to Hawkins to conceal the past and start anew.

In October 1959, the Creel family arrives in Hawkins. Henry enrolls at Hawkins High School and meets his fateful friends: Joyce Maldonado (aspiring theater director), Bob Newbie (future radio host), and Jim Hopper (future police officer). In the new environment, with pre-existing trauma, shyness, and sensitivity, Henry found his only sympathy in Bob’s adopted sister, Patty Newbie. Like Henry, she was also an eccentric girl, rejected by her father.

One time, Henry used his power to listen to Patty Newbie praying over the radio and responded “Amen,” marking the beginning of their affection.

At school, when Walt (Dustin’s father) discovered his buried past and used it to bully him, Henry, in a fit of rage, caused the surrounding camera flashes to explode. And when all these things happened, Patty was the only one who stood by him.

At the drama club audition, Joyce was bored with the annual safe choice, the musical Oklahoma. Desperate to win an art scholarship to escape Hawkins, she abruptly announced a change to Dark of the Moon, a dark play about a witch who wants to renounce magic for the love of a human girl.

Patty Newbie boldly signed up to audition for the lead female role, but none of the classmates would act with her due to the stigma of her being eccentric. Just as Walt started mocking Patty, Henry Creel walked in and offered to read the male lead’s lines. They performed the scene together. Though the ending was a bit awkward, the understanding and “chemistry” between the two lonely souls were undeniable. Joyce, who was looking for genuine emotion for the new play, was completely captivated. She immediately cast Henry and Patty as the two leads, believing they were the soul of Dark of the Moon.

After some time under the influence of the Mind Flayer, nightmares began to consume Henry. Once, while using the Void to track Walt searching for a lost cat for Claudia (Dustin’s mother), the Mind Flayer took control. Henry’s voice was distorted, the lights flickered wildly, and Henry inadvertently used his psychic power, lifting Claudia’s cat, breaking its bones, and exploding its eyes. The next morning, Henry woke up after 9 hours of unconsciousness, thinking he had only had a nightmare.

Following this strange event, Hopper, Joyce, and Bob began an investigation. The trio dug up the cat’s body, “autopsied” it, and aimed their suspicions at Henry. During a play rehearsal, Jim Hopper approached him for questioning, which caused Henry to panic and hide in the restroom. Here, hallucinations struck. In this scene, there is another difference between the two plays:

• In the London version: Henry wrestled with an illusion of Patty, and the Mind Flayer seduced him, saying, “we can possess her.”

• The Broadway version is darker: Henry saw Patty’s dead body lying on the floor. The corpse turned its head and asked, “Doesn’t that feel great?” and then tempted Henry: “Do you want to know what Patty looks like inside? Let me in, we can skin her together.”

Just then, the real Patty walked in and pulled Henry back to reality. Henry warned her that she might die if she stayed near him. Patty responded that his power was a miracle, not a curse. They shared their first kiss, and the energy exploded, causing the entire lighting system to blow out. However, Henry’s relationship was forbidden by his family.

During a date with Patty at his house to help her find her missing mother, his mother, Virginia, slapped him and threatened him. In retaliation, Henry brought up her past trauma (being locked in a closet with spiders by her father) and used his power to make her see spiders crawling everywhere. Virginia and her younger sister Alice fled the house in terror.

Immediately after, Henry took Patty up to the attic, deciding to use his power to help her find her birth mother in the Void. However, as they were connecting, the Mind Flayer infiltrated and transformed the mother’s image into a monster. Just then, Patty’s father (Principal Newbie) and Henry’s father (Victor Creel) burst in with Hopper’s group, who had been secretly tracking them.

In a state of panic and controlled by the Mind Flayer, Henry screamed in a distorted voice: “I can’t have her. She is ours!” He unintentionally froze Patty and used his power to lift Principal Newbie, throwing him across the room into the ceiling, breaking his bones and exploding his eyes.

Hopper, Joyce, and Bob rushed to the attic and found Principal Newbie lying motionless on the floor. They quickly performed CPR, thinking he was dead, but as soon as he awoke in agony, the first thing he screamed was not resentment, but an appeal: “The boy! Save the boy!” The principal likely realized that in that moment, Henry was struggling to restrain the dark monster trying to kill them all.

Before Henry collapsed from exhaustion, there was a difference between the two versions of the play: In the London version, Henry and Patty managed to say, “I love you.” In the darker Broadway version, Patty saw through Henry’s memories and witnessed the naked truth of him blinding the child in Nevada years ago.

After the somewhat horrific tragedy, Henry woke up in his bed at home. Virginia, in a desperate attempt to save her son, told Henry she had invited a “specialist doctor” from Nevada to treat him.

But he was no ordinary doctor. People in hazmat suits with magnetic detectors surrounded the house. One figure in a Hazmat suit approached Henry’s bed, removed his hood, revealing none other than Dr. Brenner. He looked at Henry and said a calculated line: “I’m here to help you.” Immediately after, Henry was taken directly to Hawkins Lab.

Here, Brenner presented a box containing Henry’s old toy, the binoculars he left behind in the fateful cave in Nevada. He revealed that his team had investigated the scene and found the toy, proving Henry was there the day he was infected with the Mind Flayer particles.

And he also suggested that Henry’s constant urge to kill was to recharge biological energy, and confirmed that Henry had disappeared for 12 hours on his birthday. In those 12 hours, no one could find him because he was pulled into Dimension X. Here we have a difference between the two versions:

• London Version: Brenner forced Henry to remember the past. Henry recalled being taken to Dimension X at age 8, and the energy exploded, causing TV screens to blow up.

• Broadway Version: Brenner showed Henry brain scan data, recreating the repressed memory of Henry lost in the monster world and his first encounter with the Demogorgon before returning to reality. Simultaneously, this is where the detail of the living father comes into play: Brenner wheeled his frail father (the Mind Flayer’s former host) out to meet Henry. The father suddenly spoke, but in the Mind Flayer’s voice: “We are friends… Before, you might have been nothing, but with us, you will be a god.“

Henry touched the old man. Energy exploded, and a real portal Gate opened on the lab wall. Through the gate, the audience saw Demobats flying. A Demogorgon arm reached through the Gate, grabbed Brenner, and threw him to the floor. Scientists quickly cut the connection; the Gate closed. Brenner’s father died immediately afterward from exhaustion, and Brenner coldly called him “weak” and proudly looked at his new experiment.

Following this event, Brenner forced Henry to kill a death row inmate to recharge energy and reopen the Gate, but Henry refused, went mad, killed the guards, threw Brenner away, and escaped home.

During the first dinner after his return, the Mind Flayer completely possessed Henry’s body. He proceeded to massacre his mother and sister, but ran out of energy before he could do anything to Victor, though this still led to Victor being arrested by the police under the misunderstanding that he was the murderer.

Waking up and taking advantage of the chaos, Henry immediately ran to the theater to find Patty to flee together. But then Brenner reappeared, poisoning Patty’s mind that Henry was a murderous monster. In agony, Henry admitted to the things he accidentally caused, but the Mind Flayer continued to take control. In the chaotic struggle, he pushed Patty, who fell from the high scaffolding onto the stage and lay motionless. Bob Newbie ran from a distance to his sister Patty, crying profusely. Henry vanished into the darkness while the press loudly reported the Creel family massacre, with Victor Creel being charged.

However, Patty survived, although seriously injured. She later left to find her birth mother and reunited with her in Las Vegas.

A small news snippet appeared: “Local research seeks pregnant volunteers for Project MK-U-L-T-R-A.”

Christmas 1960, the students at Hawkins High graduate. Jim Hopper is now wearing a police uniform. He walked into Melvald’s General Store to buy take-out food and met Joyce Maldonado. After graduation, she had to work two jobs (at Melvald’s and Enzo’s restaurant) to make a living and was dating Lonnie. Joyce shyly invited Hopper to stay for a drink after she got off work at midnight. But Hopper refused, saying he had to leave for basic training to join the military the next morning.

Before Jim left, Joyce recalled their failed plan to run away years ago: “At least we’ll always have Mexico.” They almost kissed, but Joyce pulled back. They wished each other Merry Christmas, and Hopper walked out the door.

Not far away, at Hawkins Lab, “p-r-i-s-o-n-e-r” Henry was tortured, experimented upon, and treated like nothing more than a monster. The Department of Defense even ordered Brenner to euthanize this “danger.” However, he was kept alive by Dr. Brenner, whose blood was extracted as a living blood bank to serve Project M-K-U-L-T-R-A.

By the mid-1970s, a projected footage appeared with a diagram: Henry’s photo at the top, and below it, 10 other children, all connected to Henry by lines.

Dr. Brenner approached a room where Henry was now tied to a chair and said that 10 test subjects survived after receiving his blood transfusion. He wanted Henry to help him “raise” them, calling them “brothers and sisters.”

Henry was untied. He walked over to a small girl playing with toys on the floor—it was Eleven. Henry knelt, took her hand, and said: “I’m here to help you.” At that very moment, a huge flash of light burst. The giant shadow of Vecna appeared and engulfed them both.

The source of all information was taken by the author from the posts of user u/dutycyclemusic who attended the live play on the subreddit r/HawkinsAVclub and the compiled video “Stranger Things The First Shadow ENTIRE PLAY BREAKDOWN (Watch Before Season 5).”