Joe Keery has traded Hawkins for Broadway. The Stranger Things star made his Broadway debut on October 18 in the play Other Desert Cities, and in the days since he has opened up about the move, his famous cast group chat, and what comes next. Here is the latest Joe Keery news.
A Broadway debut at the Hudson Theatre
Keery took his opening-night bow on Sunday, October 18, at the Hudson Theatre in New York City, alongside Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who was also making her Broadway debut. The two stars appear in Other Desert Cities with Broadway veterans Ed Harris, Allison Janney, and Lily Rabe, in a production directed by John Benjamin Hickey and written by Jon Robin Baitz.
The play is a family drama set in Palm Springs. As the official description puts it: “Every family has a secret. Not every family survives it.” On Christmas Eve, a daughter returns home with a memoir that threatens to expose a truth her politically connected family has kept hidden, and the question becomes who owns a family’s story, and what it costs to tell it.
Keery plays Trip Wyeth, the easygoing youngest son caught between his parents and his older sister, trying to hold the family together over the holidays. He has joked that his objective for the run is “to save Christmas.” The limited engagement runs through January 17, 2027, and early reviews have been warm, with The New York Times praising Louis-Dreyfus’s “smashing debut” and EW giving the show a B+.
Why he said yes to the stage
For Keery, the stage is a return to his roots. He fell in love with theatre growing up and in drama school, and he has said he had been wanting to get back to it after playing Steve Harrington in Stranger Things. The cast made the decision easy: his first reading for the play featured Louis-Dreyfus, Janney, and Harris, and he has described getting that email as an instant yes.
He also credits a nudge from a familiar face. Keery told People that his Stranger Things co-star Sadie Sink, who played Max opposite his Steve, urged him to take the Broadway plunge. Sink knows the world well: she made her own Broadway debut as a child in the 2012 revival of Annie, appeared opposite Helen Mirren in The Audience, and earned a Tony nomination in 2025 for John Proctor Is the Villain. Keery said he caught up with her in London ahead of her Romeo and Juliet opening, and has also been trading stage notes with Gaten Matarazzo, who is starring in a West End revival of Rent.
The Stranger Things group chat lives on
Speaking to People on opening night, Keery revealed that the Stranger Things cast still keeps in touch through a group chat, even months after the show ended. Stranger Things ran for five seasons from July 2016, concluding with its final season in late 2025. When asked who sends the most messages, Keery named Finn Wolfhard, who played Mike Wheeler. “Oh, man, maybe Finn Wolfhard, I guess maybe, yeah, we’re keeping in touch,” he said.
The friendship was also discussed at a panel at The Paley Museum in New York in December, where series co-creator Matt Duffer recalled how Wolfhard used to follow Keery around on set in the early seasons, “like a little puppy dog.” Wolfhard joked that their dynamic later reversed as they grew older.
What is next for Joe Keery
Keery was scheduled to appear on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday, October 26, alongside Billy Crystal. Music remains part of his life too: as Djo, he released his third album, The Crux, in April 2025. He has said he has no immediate plans to do a stage musical, but he is not ruling one out.
As for the superhero rumours linking him to Marvel roles such as Harry Osborn or Nova, none of it is confirmed. Keery addressed the fan casting in February 2026, saying timing tends to sort itself out, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day arrived without him. For now, his focus is firmly on the Hudson Theatre stage, where he will spend the holidays trying to save Christmas, eight shows a week.
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