Artist Profile: Kate Trefry is Not Afraid of the Dark

As a writer and co-executive producer of Netflix’s hit science fiction series “Stranger Things” and playwright of its staged prequel “Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” Kate Trefry knows how to create lovable protagonists — and perhaps even better antagonists. A cultural phenomenon since its release in 2016, “Stranger Things” has naturally become iconic not just because of the strength of its heroes, but also because of the appeal of its villains. Trefry, someone largely responsible for that appeal, recognizes that every evil has a story and embraces time spent contemplating the complexity of darkness, whether in the writers’ room or in her personal life.

In Season 2 and 3 of “Strangers Things,” the main characters fight off a faceless, spiderlike antagonist called the Mind Flayer, before Seasons 4 and 5 pivot to reveal Vecna, the villainous incarnation of former high school student Henry Creel (Jamie Campbell Bower).

“It was kind of like baby steps, going weirdly backwards from the Lovecraftian, unknowable evil of the Mind Flayer in Season 2 to giving them a human face in Season 4, and then in the play and in Season 5, exploring who that was,” Trefry said in an interview with The Crimson.

Though the writers initially toyed with the possibility of portraying Vecna as solely evil, they ultimately decided against that path and began developing his backstory, first in the show and later in the play.

“For a while we threw around the idea of being like, do we just commit to Vecna being like a Michael Myers character, who doesn’t really have a backstory, who’s just a bad seed,” Trefry said. “But that’s such a closed door, and I also don’t think that really is reflective of the world. I think it’s so fun to go into those gray areas and be uncomfortable.”

It was exactly this mindset that drew Trefry to playwriting for the show’s staged adaptation, “Stranger Things: The First Shadow”.

Directed by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, “The First Shadow” jumps back in time to Vecna’s origin story, following teenaged Henry Creel as he fights, and eventually succumbs to, the monster he will become. Throughout the play, otherworldly forces and taunting visions tell him that he cannot escape his own inner evil.

Crafting Vecna’s backstory gave Trefry the opportunity to tackle the complicated question of what makes someone become evil — a question partly informed by Trefry’s personal experiences with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

“The shape that my OCD takes is usually that kind of thematic thing, of doing something bad. So I spent years of my life kind of gripped by this terror that I had these bad thoughts, and that meant that I wanted to do that, that I was a bad person,” Trefry said.

Despite little information on Henry’s youth in Season 4, Trefry saw parts of her own struggle reflected in his story and was drawn to the opportunity of bringing some of that complexity to the stage.

“I was so excited to work on the story of Henry Creel, where I feel like he embodies that struggle, that battle, and that he’s being pulled in these different directions of, what makes you bad? Can you be redeemed?” she said.

This was not the first time Trefry’s experiences with OCD and her creative work were entwined. While attending college at New York University, she began exposure therapy, during which she came up with Wanda, a personification of her OCD who later became a central character in one of Trefry’s first scripts in a screenwriting class.

She imagined Wanda as an old librarian from the 50s, sitting at the console of a metaphorical rocket ship. According to Trefry, Wanda isn’t trying to hurt her, she just “doesn’t know how to work anything” and keeps pressing the wrong buttons. Giving her OCD a face, personality, and backstory helped Trefry better understand a part of her life that used to feel scary and unknown.

“You get really familiar with your personal darknesses and dark thoughts,” Trefry said of the exposure therapy process.

The practice of confronting discomfort isn’t limited to Trefry’s creative career. In her downtime, she enjoys watching a range of movies, from “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” to “Jaws” and “Inside Out” to “Shadow of a Doubt.” But mostly, she says, she likes watching things that scare her, “because it makes [her] feel strong.”

Though Trefry has created and enjoyed various horror and science fiction stories, she has also started working on a project that breaks from those genres: a romance about finding love later in life.

While working on “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” in London, Trefry’s father, a widower, and her husband’s mother came to help take care of their children.

“I was like, wouldn’t it be funny if my dad and your mom hooked up? And he was like, that’s a movie,” Trefry said.

The pair has also collaborated on other projects including the short film “Souls of Totality” and the upcoming television show “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen,” about a woman named Rachel (Camila Morrone) who, just before her wedding, finds out that she is cursed: If she doesn’t marry her soulmate, she’ll bleed to death.

“It was fun being a married couple in the writers room, talking about commitment anxiety and what marriage does to you,” Trefry said of the writing process with her husband.

When asked whether there’s a reason she repeatedly writes about curses or if the theme organically keeps coming back (Trefry also co-wrote “Fear Street Part 3: 1666,” a movie about a cursed town), she responded simply: “Like a bad penny, man.”

Affinity for supernatural curses aside, Trefry’s advice to her college-age self is to trust the process and keep a balanced outlook. Her college experience was steered by her love for writing, but she wasn’t totally sure at first how that passion would manifest careerwise. Now, she would tell herself not to worry too much about not having a specific plan.

“Don’t waste your time trying to be at the end. There’s always something wrong and there’s always something wonderful, so just let it be what it is,” Trefry said.

Staff writer Francesca H. Vittorelli can be reached at [email protected]