Broadway Reviews Theatre Review by Howard Miller - April 26, 2026 The Lost Boys. Book by David Hornsby and Chris Hoch. Music and lyrics by The Rescues. Directed by Michael Arden. Choreography and aerial choreography by Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant. Music supervision by Ethan Popp. Scenic design by Dane Laffrey. Costume design by Ryan Park. Lighting design by Jen Schriever and Michael Arden. Sound design by Adam Fisher. Hair and wig design by David Brian Brown. Makeup design by Christina Grant. Aerial design by Gwyneth Larsen and Billy Mulholland. Fight direction by Sordelet Inc. Special effects design by Markus Maurette. Orchestrations and arrangements by Ethan Popp, Adrianne "AG" Gonzalez, Gabriel Mann, and Kyler England. Vocal arrangements by The Rescues. Music director Julie McBride. Electronic music design by Billy Jay Stein and Hiro Iida, Strange Cranium. Dramaturg Jenna Clark Embrey. Associate director Henry Gottfried. Music coordinator Kristy Norter. Creative consultant Mark Kaufman.
Let's start off by bestowing gold medals on the design team. Not since Mary Martin defied gravity in 1954's Peter Pan has there been such an audience-thrilling act of aerial ballet on Broadway (credit Gwyneth Larsen and Billy Mulholland for that). And then there is Dane Laffrey's complex, multilevel set design; the special effects by Markus Maurette; and the creepy, shadowy lighting that is so essential to the overall experience that director Michael Arden is credited alongside veteran lighting designer Jen Schriever for its creation. It all makes for an electrifying display, so much so that you might be able to overlook the all-too-familiar underlying plot about the new kid in town trying to find his way into independence from what for him is a stifling family situation. The Lost Boys is based on the 1987 film of the same title, in which a mother and her two teenage sons leave their home in Phoenix, Arizona to start a new life in the fictional California coastal town of Santa Carla. You'd think the boys would get caught up in the whole Surfin' USA vibe, but instead, they walk into a deadly trap inhabited not by beach bums but by a group of rebels who turn out to be, non-metaphorically speaking, blood-sucking vampires. With a few adjustments to the plot, that's the story of The Lost Boys, the musical. Plug in the exceptional stagecraft and one of the better rock-and-pop scores to hit Broadway in quite a while, and you've got a near-flawless first act, replete with all the teenage angst and jolts of fright that anyone could wish for. The show opens without warning. The theater is plunged into darkness, and a deep bass thrumming fills the air with foreboding. The curtain rises on the interior of a defunct ironworks factory. The only light comes from a flashlight being carried by a police officer, who slowly descends from the top tier of the triple-layered mix of metal platforms and staircases. It's all very ominous, and potentially a plot spoiler if I continue. So let's cut to the family at the center of the story. When we meet up with them, they are on the road to a new life in Santa Carla. There's the boys' mother Lucy (Shoshana Bean), who promises, in song of course, that there will be "no more monsters" in their lives. There's 18(ish)-year-old Michael (LJ Benet, a long way from Disney's "Dog with a Blog" TV sitcom). And, finally, we have 14-year-old Sam (Benjamin Pajak), who may or may not be gay, what with that poster of Rob Lowe hanging in his closet and the word "queer" that keeps cropping up, at least in its old-fashioned meaning. In short, your typical single-parent American family. (An abusive father is out of the picture, though his scary memory lingers on).
In true Broadway musical fashion, Michael meets up with an attractive, kind of goth-looking young woman named Star (Maria Wirries). She befriends him and even offers to pierce his ear (oh, the yummy blood). We soon learn she has been sent to hook up with him for a very different purpose by the mysterious rebel-with-a-cause David (Ali Louis Bourzgui, who blew the lid off the title role in the 2024 Broadway revival of The Who's Tommy). By any measure, the first act works like a charm, and the curtain falls on the open question as to whether or not David and his acolytes will be able to entice Michael into joining them in the eternal bliss of vampire-hood. Unfortunately, what shows up after intermission is a largely conventional second act. We spend more time with Lucy and her new boss, the genial Max (Paul Alexander Nolan), and with Sam and his own new friends, the Frog Brothers (Miguel Gil and Jennifer Duka). It is through these two that Sam comes to understand why Santa Carla is dubbed "the murder capital of the world," and he sets out to rescue his brother. The Sam/Frog Brothers material is fine in a Monster Squad sort of way, but in switching the emphasis to the younger characters, the sense of dread dissipates. The show then plays out in a far more predictable fashion. Toward the end, there is a quick reclamation of some of that earlier moodiness that so effectively set up the atmosphere of threat and jeopardy. But the ultimate showdown comes in another flash of special effects that are paced far too quickly for us to fully savor the experience. Vampires and Broadway have met with mixed success over the years, ranging from the well-received revival of Dracula that starred Frank Langella in the late 1970s to the Elton John musical Lestat that barely registered in its 2006 production. The biggest problem with The Lost Boys is the stylistic lack of balance between the two halves of the show. But there is so much pleasure to be found in the atmospheric vampire elements that it may go by unnoticed. Awards season is upon us, and this one has already picked up 11 nominations by the Outer Critics Circle. Stay tuned to see what happens when the Drama Desk and Tony Award nominations are announced. The Lost Boys is quite likely to make the short list.
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