Michael Arden's Lost Boys Opens on Broadway
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- The Lost Boys opened at the Palace Theatre under director Michael Arden, with a book by David Hornsby and Chris Hoch and music and lyrics by indie band The Rescues, running 2 hours 30 minutes with intermission
- Ali Louis Bourzgui stars as vampire gang leader David, with LJ Benet as Michael Emerson, Shoshana Bean as his mother Lucy, and Benjamin Pajak as younger brother Sam; the show is set in 1987 Santa Carla and weaves in aerial stunts, a mosh-pit reveal, and a queer-coded coming-out number for Sam
- The production reportedly cost $25 million, with producers including actor Patrick Wilson and Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures; Dane Laffrey designed a multi-part set, and special-effects designer Markus Maurette staged explosions, fire, and blood-letting
- The Deadline review praised the show as an antidote to past Broadway vampire-musical flops like Lestat and Dance of the Vampires, singling out a soaring aerial ballet and the Palace's massive renovated stage as showcases
- A reader comment under the review sharply dissented, calling the show 'fangless' and an F, criticizing the wire work as inferior to Spider-Man, the set as 'drab' for a beach town, and the score as folk-rock with too many ballads for an '80s horror property
Why it matters: With a reported $25 million budget and a producer roster anchored by Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures and Patrick Wilson, The Lost Boys is a high-stakes swing at reviving a dormant subgenre (Broadway vampire musicals) and signals whether IP-driven genre horror can deliver commercially in the post-Cursed Child, post-First Shadow era of effects-heavy stagecraft.
