Broadway Shockers 2016: Stranger Things Makes Gaten Matarazzo a National Obsession

With the face of a cherub and the swagger of a Backstreet Boy, Gaten Matarazzo has been one of the crown jewels of Broadway’s younger contingency since 2011. At the age of nine, he made his Broadway debut in Priscilla Queen of the Desert and in 2014 became the most adorable Gavroche any revival of Les Miz has ever seen.

It’s no wonder he became the breakout star of Netflix’s latest phenomenon Stranger Things. In the series, Matarazzo plays a shaggy-haired teenager of the ’80s in a world where aliens dwell in a nearby parallel universe he and his banana-bike-riding pals like to call “The Upside Down.” It doesn’t sound like the greatest foundation for a musical episode, but if Buffy did it, anything’s possible.

P.S. We found him first…