Designing illusions for 'Stranger Things: The First Shadow' and 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child'

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Of each the elaborate illusions and wall-to-wall effects performed successful the signifier amusement “Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” the trickiest 1 is simply a signature ocular of the “Stranger Things” universe: the nosebleed.

“Making a nosebleed hap onstage is rather virtually 1 of the astir hard things I person ever done successful my full existence,” said Jamie Harrison, who designed the play’s illusions and ocular effects with Chris Fisher. “It was truthful hard. And we couldn’t conscionable say, ‘Please, tin we chopped the nosebleed?’ Because it’s canon!”

“And it’s hard because, successful the TV show, it’s conscionable a sponge up the nose, you tin virtually hold until it starts dribbling and accidental ‘cut’ erstwhile you’re done,” added Fisher. “Ours person to bleed connected demand.”

“Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” opening contiguous connected Broadway aft a deed debut successful London’s West End, is simply a prequel to the Duffer Brothers’ Netflix fearfulness bid that’s acceptable successful 1959 Hawkins, Ind., erstwhile Dr. Brenner is conscionable getting his commencement successful his laboratory and Bob Newby, Joyce Maldonado and Jim Hopper are successful their past twelvemonth of precocious school. A caller pupil named Henry Creel arrives, arsenic does a question of shocking crimes astir town.

Aidan Close and Emmet Smith successful the North American circuit of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child."

The nonstop communicative other happens to beryllium “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” the circuit of which is present playing astatine the Hollywood Pantages Theatre done June 22 and ends astatine Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center (July 5-25, 2026). The family-friend sequel takes spot decades aft J.K. Rowling’s last “Harry Potter” publication and movie, with Harry, Ron and Hermione present parents of children enrolling successful Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Both of these Olivier-winning signifier shows are caller adventures acceptable amid planetary phenomenons, implicit with cameos by acquainted faces and unrecorded renditions of mind-bending spectacles — albeit for precise antithetic communicative contexts and with drastically chiseled assemblage impacts. And some Fisher, with acquisition successful signifier management, and Harrison, with grooming successful classical acting, spent a spell of their puerility injured successful the infirmary and were each fixed a magic acceptable to walk the time.

After collaborating connected an aboriginal store of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” the 2 joined forces to bring to beingness wand duels, transfiguration potions and the Mind Flayer. The Times spoke with Fisher and Harrison astir creating wrong specified well-known worlds, competing with the effects of movie and TV and leaving illusions successful the actors’ hands. This speech has been edited for magnitude and clarity.

What’s astir misunderstood astir what you 2 do?

Harrison: Quite often, we’ll beryllium described arsenic illusionists, which are performers successful the aforesaid mode a pianist plays the piano. We are illusion designers, radical with a magic inheritance who marque theater. And we’re not consultants either; we don’t conscionable travel successful for 10 minutes and consult. We’re an embedded portion of the originative squad and, connected some of these shows, we were determination from the commencement of the improvement process of the publication to adhd immoderate theatricality we tin to heighten the experience.

Fisher: Both of these shows person precise developed worlds and mythologies, but each effect has been designed to service the story, it’s not the communicative having to service the effect. And we enactment straight with each azygous section successful the accumulation — wigs, wardrobe, automation, props, direction, music, sound, lighting, everyone — and it’s a immense collaboration from the precise beginning. Everybody needs to get everything close for it to truly sing; the quality betwixt it being an astonishing infinitesimal onstage and it being OK oregon embarrassing oregon atrocious is tiny.

Do you consciousness a unit to vie with the effects successful film, tv and video, particularly due to the fact that these 2 titles are fashionable onscreen?

Harrison: I felt a immense unit astir that with “Harry Potter” astatine first. But then, the aboriginal audiences responded incredibly, and applauded and screamed erstwhile we wanted them to, due to the fact that it’s live. What cinema and CGI tin bash is fantastic, and I emotion it, but erstwhile you spot idiosyncratic vanish successful beforehand of your ain eyes, subverting the laws of physics successful the aforesaid country you’re sitting in, it’s thrilling. So we cognize from years of doing this present that the unrecorded acquisition is antithetic — and arsenic powerful, if not much almighty — than the screen.

Fisher: The happening with “Back to the Future” [which I designed the illusions for] and “Harry Potter” is that there’s an anticipation to re-create immoderate moments from the movies; that car’s got to get to 88 miles per hour, they’ve got to spell done that Platform 9 ¾. What’s fantastic is erstwhile we’ve got first-time theatergoers coming to these shows, radical who’ve lone seen the films and deliberation that’s each the effects tin be. When they spot these unrecorded theatre effects successful beforehand of them, it blows their minds, they’re enthused and privation to travel backmost to spot much of this benignant of thing. So we some dainty it arsenic an accidental to lucifer what they’ve seen, and effort to marque it adjacent better.

A country from the North American circuit of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

A bulk of the “Harry Potter” illusions are executed by actors, who usually don’t person acquisition with magic. How does that work?

Harrison: Chris and I learned truthful overmuch astir creating signifier illusions by performing close-up magic due to the fact that you get to spot the science of magic from an audience’s position by doing it one-on-one with radical hundreds of times a day. So the cardinal accomplishment for our actors to larn is knowing wherever the assemblage is and isn’t looking astatine immoderate moment. We ne'er privation the assemblage to spot you getting acceptable for a magic trick, we privation them to enactment successful the communicative and thrust the affectional travel of the scene.

So there’s a full acceptable of skills that close-up magicians and signifier magicians usage that we’ve tally with, and we springiness the formed an instauration to magic that covers a batch of those things…

Fisher: … sleight of hand, misdirection, assorted antithetic forms of magic. We bash it connected the archetypal time of rehearsals, and it’s to assistance them recognize what they’re astir to bash successful the show. Because a magic instrumentality successful the hands of a bully magician — idiosyncratic who understands the science of however the infinitesimal works — tin consciousness miraculous.

It’s aggravated — each time is captious due to the fact that you’re ever learning thing new, from traps to flying to spells, and it’s lone successful the repetition of performing it again and again that you go amended astatine it. Sometimes an incoming performer can’t rather tackle it the aforesaid mode that a erstwhile performer has, and they conscionable find it truly hard.

But our associates, who are assigned to each show, accommodate the teaching of the illusions to the needs of the performers, due to the fact that illusions person to consciousness earthy to not look contrived. Sometimes they extremity up doing it successful a mode that really makes the effect better, and we instrumentality that backmost and integrate it into our different productions.

Dementors and actors successful "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child"

Transferring “Stranger Things” from London to Broadway, oregon opening a “Harry Potter” accumulation successful different state oregon connected tour, presents opportunities to set your designs. What are your priorities erstwhile doing so?

Harrison: It’s true. Everything we’re doing successful a show, we’re being ambitious and trying things that haven’t been done before.

Fisher: And erstwhile we archetypal make a show, we don’t cognize if these effects are going to enactment due to the fact that they’re bespoke and wholly marque new. We anticipation they do! So it’s ever a joyousness to beryllium capable to bash thing a 2nd time, particularly with feedback from the actors who’ve been performing them.

Harrison: Every clip it moves, it ever changes somewhat due to the fact that we’ve been capable to amended recognize the beats successful immoderate moments and tighten those up. We’re notorious for our standards, and each clip we unfastened “Harry Potter” successful a caller venue, we’ll inquire radical to beryllium successful antithetic parts of the theater, often astatine utmost angles, and outcry retired if we’re accidentally exposing anything.

Fisher: What’s superb for america is that, whenever “Harry Potter” has changed — going from 2 parts to one, and past getting chopped adjacent shorter — we’ve ne'er mislaid immoderate illusions. It truly is much magic per infinitesimal due to the fact that the amusement got shorter but the effects stayed the same.

Jamie Harrison, left, and Chris Fisher astatine "Stranger Things" premiere successful London.

Harrison: Bringing “Stranger Things” to Broadway, we’ve made immoderate flimsy method improvements connected things and wholly redesigned different things truthful that the interaction is importantly stronger than successful London. And we’ve added a full batch of caller illusions successful arsenic well.

Fisher: After London, we did 2 much illusion workshops wherever we spoke with the writers and directors and looked astatine the full amusement — the caller beats oregon illusions we wanted to create, and the ways we could amended connected what we had. And 1 of the things was blood. We learned from London that, successful bid for it to work arsenic humor onstage, it has to beryllium seen against a achromatic cloth oregon determination has to beryllium a batch of it. The feedback was that determination needed to beryllium adjacent much blood, truthful we’ve developed caller ways of delivering the humor successful the show, and we’re inactive improving that.

Harrison: I volition say, making a nosebleed hap onstage is rather virtually 1 of the astir hard things I person ever done successful my full existence. It was truthful hard. And we couldn’t conscionable say, “Please, tin we chopped the nosebleed?” Because it’s canon!

Fisher: And it’s hard because, successful the TV show, it’s conscionable a sponge up the nose, you tin virtually hold until it starts dribbling and accidental “cut” erstwhile you’re done. Ours person to bleed connected demand.

Harrison: We went done dozens of antithetic ideas. We had each of these unthinkable automated chemoreceptor units made with small actuators and each sorts of things. But sometimes, the reply is conscionable to support it simple.

With “Stranger Things” being of the fearfulness genre, versus the family-friendly “Harry Potter,” however bash you marque illusions arsenic scary arsenic possible?

Harrison: We did a batch of probe connected assorted people’s approaches and knowing of what makes thing scary, successful bid to find what we wanted audiences’ experiences to be. There are immoderate shows retired determination that lone bash leap scares — radical emotion them. We emotion a bully leap scare excessively and we’ve got immoderate large ones successful this show. But past determination are different sequences wherever you privation to physique hostility and a existent consciousness of horror.

One country that was pugnacious was the Scary Patty sequence, wherever Patty turns into a monster. It’s present wholly antithetic to what we primitively started with successful London previews, and you tin spot successful the documentary that it’s a existent occupation series astatine the time. We had this thought that her look would melt, and we worked with 1 of the champion prosthetics companies successful the world. We enactment it onstage and it conscionable didn’t work. Even though it looked superb up close, you couldn’t truly archer what was going connected from much than six meters away.

And these flaps of tegument were dropping down, and it became much comic than scary. That’s the enactment you privation to locomotion with horror: You’ve got to propulsion it truthful acold that the assemblage has a effect to it, but not transverse that enactment wherever you suffer the fearfulness factor. In a mates of previews successful New York, we pushed it a small excessively far, but thankfully, the different night’s amusement study read, “Scary Patty: assemblage gasps and screams, and ends with a circular of applause.”

Fisher: Another archetypal thought for Scary Patty was that she’d commencement bleeding each over, with patches of humor appearing connected her dress. Honestly, we spent astir the full rehearsal play trying to marque humor travel done — we went done antithetic fabrics, antithetic pumps for the humor — and it was implicit carnage. It was truthful stressful. We didn’t get the humor to reliably seep done the cloth successful clip for it to beryllium a signifier effect. You deliberation it would beryllium straightforward, but it was truthful hard! We’re some rather resilient and doggedly determined to support going, but that was 1 happening wherever we had to conscionable say: We’re cutting that idea, but we’ve got 2 others.

What proposal would you springiness to playwrights who privation to constitute effects into their work?

Harrison: Go for it, and fto your imaginativeness tally wild. Theater is simply a dynamic situation for imaginative radical to bash chill things, and audiences volition opt in. We ever archer the writers we enactment with, “Don’t inquire us, ‘Can you bash this?’ Write the astir astonishing happening you privation to see. It’s our occupation to effort to enactment that onstage. And adjacent if you haven’t got a multimillion-pound budget, a bully illusion decorator volition travel up with different mode of doing it.

Fisher: Remember that illusion techniques tin heighten the theatrical experience, heighten an emotion oregon elevate a peculiar moment. So deliberation extracurricular the box, don’t beryllium complacent oregon consciousness pigeonholed that you person to constitute successful a clump of magic tricks. You tin spell overmuch bigger than that.