On a late-February afternoon at the Palace Theatre, the cast of Broadway’s “The Lost Boys” trains over a three-tier set and a massive harness rig—because the show’s creators say the point is to make audiences laugh, fear and react in the same night. With 12 To
In an auditorium at the Palace Theatre in New York, rehearsal looks less like theater and more like flight training.
It’s late February. and the cast and creative team are deep into an aerial session for “The Lost Boys. ” the new rock musical adapted from the 1987 horror comedy that launched Kiefer Sutherland and Corey Haim as teen icons. Laptops. cough drops and heart-shaped candies sit around the room as crew members hammer and drill into a massive. three-tier set—preparing for the moment when a young coven of heartthrobs run a scene called “Belong to Someone. ” while Michael and his spiky-haired undead friends flip and float high above the stage.
For LJ Benet, starring as Michael, the work is both intense and oddly freeing once you’re in the harness. “When you’re strapped in a harness for eight hours. you have to find fun somewhere. ” he says with a smile on a recent afternoon. His version of coping is simple: “just seeing what’s possible to do on these wires.”.
At first, the aerial work was “absolutely terrifying,” Benet recalls. Now. he says. it “just feels like second nature.” Between takes. he and his co-star Ali Louis Bourzgui—who plays one of the featured undead—practice handstands and “swimming” mid-air while dangling from wires. goofing around when they can pretend they’re not hundreds of pounds above the stage.
Three months into its Broadway run, “The Lost Boys” has become the most Tony-nominated show of the season. It is up for 12 awards, including best musical, best featured actor (Bourzgui) and best featured actress (Shoshana Bean).
The musical tracks the story familiar from the film: Michael. his comic-book-nerd brother Sam (Benjamin Pajak) and their newly divorced mom Lucy (Bean) head to the California coast seeking a fresh start. But the town they arrive in is hit by a string of mysterious disappearances—and Michael’s new group of goth-rockin’. night-owl pals just might be tangled in what’s vanishing.
“The Lost Boys” is helmed by Joel Schumacher, the director of the cult classic movie. The film helped propel Corey Haim and Alex Winter to stardom. even as it’s hardly the obvious source material for Broadway. given its gory body-horror edge. Past vampire shows have had a rocky history on Broadway. including infamous flops such as “Dracula. ” “Lestat” and “Dance of the Vampires.” Two-time Tony winner Michael Arden (“Maybe Happy Ending”) was undaunted—and says the key is tonal contradiction. not imitation.
Arden, who directs and co-lighting designs the musical, says, “Past vampire shows have been either completely silly or completely serious. You need both in order to buy into the world. We need to be able to laugh about vampire tropes in order for the threat to actually feel dangerous. You have to give the audience a little bit of whiplash so that we can sink our teeth into them.”.
Arden says he had never seen the film before the COVID lockdown. Once he did, he was drawn to its blend: a sexy teen drama with a campy yet terrifying adventure. The question, he says, was whether theater could deliver that same swing.
“It seemed like it could be a really interesting challenge: Can you make people laugh, cry and scream?” Arden says. “It’d be a great night at the theater if you could do all of those things.”
That ambition shaped the team behind the sound and the script. Arden enlisted the band The Rescues to pen an anthemic pop-rock score. David Hornsby (“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”) and actor Chris Hoch (“Matilda”) also came aboard to write the script. Hoch admits he was obsessed with the movie growing up. while Hornsby says he had only watched it once before signing on.
Even so, Hornsby says the feedback from fans made the creative stakes feel immediate. “When I started telling people I was working on this, I’d just see it in their reactions,” he recalls. “It was usually followed by, ‘Is the saxophone guy in the show?. Are you going to have the death-by-stereo moment?’ They wanted to make sure we were putting in their favorite parts. so I felt the pressure right away.”.
The show keeps several well-known film moments intact—its memorable bike chase and bathtub, along with the iconic sequence of Michael and the vamps leaping from a bridge to avoid an oncoming train. Hoch remembers an early scheduling tension tied to that sequence.
“There was one point early on where the first act was running long and there was the thought of, ‘Well, do we cut the bridge?’” he says. “But the vampires have to fly,” Hoch continues. “And ultimately, ‘we were just wide-eyed in the theater watching what Michael Arden and his team came up with.’”
That mixture—faithful to cult moments, but built to hit new emotional notes—shows up in the story’s characters. Arden emphasizes that the monstrous parts don’t erase the human ones. Michael gets more space to grapple with his monstrous, abusive father. Lucy and the queer-coded Sam are likewise fleshed out. and Michael’s love interest. Star (Maria Wirries). has her own narrative weight.
Bean describes the difference with a blunt clarity. “The women have conflict and desire and a reason for moving forward, which didn’t really exist in the movie,” she says. “It’s been nice to have a little meat on the bones.”
The audience response has been just as concrete as the stage magic. On a daily basis, Bean and Benet see theatergoers arrive dressed in goth-grunge style with fanart of the cast. Bean says one woman and her service dog have already seen the musical 28 times.
“She says the dog wears earphones because our show is so loud, and the dog comes dressed as a vampire,” Bean says, wide-eyed. “It’s a dog-pire!”
Benet says he’s also shared conversations at the stage door with younger fans who recognize themselves in the story. “I resonated a lot with Michael. and when I heard the music. I knew there’d be people who’d gone through similar things that I’d been through before. ” he says. “A couple nights ago, we had this fan come up to me who had seen the show nine times. She said that she literally comes so she can hear the song ‘If We Make It Through the Night.’”.
Benet doesn’t hide the personal connection to that moment. “I’ve been there; those words resonate with me every single night,” he adds. “Yes, this show is a spectacle, but it’s healing as well. Who would’ve thought you could find joy and hope in a vampire musical?”
The Lost Boys Broadway LJ Benet Shoshana Bean Tony nominations Michael Arden Palace Theatre rock musical aerial rehearsal vampire musical