Shannon Purser's Role on NBC's 'Rise' Was Written Just for Her!

Shannon Purser is best known for her role as Barb on Stranger Things and now TV audiences will get to watch her on NBC’s new musical series Rise.

The 20-year-old Emmy-nominated actress plays the role of drama club member Annabelle in the new series and her role was actually written specifically for her!

Casting director Tiffany Little Canfield opened up to THR about how Shannon became involved with the project.

“Shannon is a funny story because obviously she was Barb on Stranger Things and was fantastic in that role. She was in Los Angeles and we had a general with her, again, where we just basically meet the actor and talk to them. When we were talking to Shannon, she told us about how she loved musicals and she did musicals. She’s from Atlanta and auditioned for [Stranger Things] as a local hire for a day player role and it turned into Barb. When we found out she did musicals, of course we clocked that in our memory because we love to work on musicals,” Tiffany said.

“So when this show came up we brought her in, and what was really exciting there is that Jason was so enamored with her that he created a role. Her role was not initially in the search. It was actually created for Shannon because he felt so much that she fit our ensemble,” she added.