Interactive experience immerses fans into the creepy world of Stranger Things (photo courtesy Netflix)
STRANGER THINGS: THE EXPERIENCE
Duggal Greenhouse
63 Flushing Ave., Building 268, Brooklyn
Wednesday – Sunday through September 4, children $64 – $96.80, adults $84.90 – $129
strangerthings-experience.com
If you’ve been watching or are up to date with Stranger Things on Netflix, you might have found yourself occasionally having trouble sleeping, especially after certain particularly frightening episodes of the sci-fi horror hit, set in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, in the 1980s. Unsurprisingly, the citizens of Hawkins are having their own slumber issues, which is the premise behind Stranger Things: The Experience, an immersive adventure that continues at the Duggal Greenhouse at the Brooklyn Navy Yard through September 4.
The Hawkins National Laboratory (HNL), part of the US Department of Energy, is conducting a sleep study to find out just what is going on in “the Best Small Town in America” — as if they didn’t already know that it has to do with killer creatures and the Upside Down, an alternate dimension where evil, unexplainable events are happening, brought about by the lab itself.
Subjects — er, ticket holders — are led through a series of rooms that begins as a scientific research study into paranormal powers, testing various skills, but quickly turns dangerous. Suddenly the soothing, instructive words of Dept. of Energy executive Sam Owens (Paul Reiser) and HNL head Dr. Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine), affectionately known to his patients as Papa, seem disingenuous as new perils await around each corner.
Beware the demogorgon at Stranger Things experience (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Meanwhile, a group of kids are trying to help, consisting of the goofy but determined Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo); the always serious Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin); the fiercely independent Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink); the deeply sensitive Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), who went missing in season one; Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard), who undergoes the biggest coming-of-age changes over the course of the show; and, at the center of it all, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), a mysterious young girl with special powers who appears virtually out of nowhere in the first episode. Just as an fyi, you won’t encounter Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder), Sheriff Jim Hopper (David Harbour), Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer), Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton), Steve Harrington (Joe Keery), Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn), Erica Sinclair (Priah Ferguson), or Murray Bauman (Brett Gelman) during the journey, but to say any more would venture into spoiler territory.
Stranger Things: The Experience is like a series of escape rooms, except there is always a way out. The show, created by the Duffer Brothers, has presented thirty-four episodes over four seasons since its premiere on July 15, 2016; each of the uniquely detailed spaces in Duggal Greenhouse is like a new episode, with its own storyline as well as prompts to make sure participants make it through safely.
Although children as young as five are allowed to enter, there are four-letter words, and several of the cool special effects can be legitimately scary for some people of any age, so be prepared. Netflix clearly went all-in on this sixty-minute production, which includes a 3D room that, like the show, makes you question reality. Everything is original to the experience; it does not repurpose existing material. It also knows exactly what fans want, so arrive with an investigative spirit that can lead to a few little bonuses that others might miss. But you won’t be lost if you haven’t finished season four yet. (The fifth and final season is not scheduled to air until 2024 or 2025.)
The experience concludes with a re-creation of the Starcourt Mall, complete with the Scoops Ahoy Ice Cream Parlor, Surfer Boy Pizza, the Time-Out Arcade, a video store, a 1980s-style telephone booth (alas, there’s a dial tone but you can’t make a call), the Hellfire Club merch shop, Rink-O-Mania, the Byers living room (with fab details that need to be seen up close), and the Upside bar, where you can order such drinks as the Demogorgon, the Upside Down, Friends Don’t Lie, the Hopper, and Yuri Gonna Love This and check out a few original costumes and props. There’s also a bonus photo opp room.
Tickets are expensive — $64-$84.90 for standard admission, $96.80-$129 for VIP skip-the-line access, which includes a free drink, a tote bag, and a discount on merchandise — so it’s really meant for the true Stranger Things fan. But for those loyal devotees, some of whom come dressed as characters — everyone is encouraged to dress like it’s the ’80s — it’s wicked fun, a bitchin’, righteously gnarly good time.
To keep up the strangeness, Stranger Sings! The Parody Musical returns to New York City in an updated, immersive, in-the-round production starting September 12 at Playhouse 46 at St. Luke’s. Directed by Nick Flatto and with book, music, and lyrics by Jonathan Hogue, the hundred-minute show features such songs as “Welcome to Hawkins,” “The Dad I Never Had,” “Getting Closer,” “In These Woods,” and “Where There’s a Will.”