Why '80s vampire classic 'Lost Boys' is suddenly Broadway's hottest ticket

NEW YORK – Learning how to fly isn’t quite as cool as it looks.

LJ Benet knows that firsthand starring in “The Lost Boys,” a no-expenses-spared vampire spectacular adapted from the 1987 horror comedy with Jason Patric and Kiefer Sutherland.

It’s late February, and the cast and creative team are in the throes of an arduous aerial rehearsal. Laptops, cough drops and heart-shaped candies are strewn across the auditorium, as crew members drill and hammer into the massive, three-tiered set.

The musical’s young coven of heartthrobs is gearing up to run through “Belong to Someone,” sung by the brooding Michael (Benet) with his found family of spiky-haired undead, who are soon flipping and floating high above the Palace Theatre stage.

During rehearsal breaks, Benet goofs off with his friend and costar Ali Louis Bourzgui: dangling from their wires as they practice handstands, dance routines and “swimming” mid-air, when they’re not pretending to blow-dart each other from across the stage.

“When you’re strapped in a harness for eight hours, you have to find fun somewhere,” Benet recalls with a smile on a recent afternoon. “That was our version of it: just seeing what’s possible to do on these wires.” The aerial work, in general, was “absolutely terrifying at first. Now it just feels like second nature.”

'Can you make people laugh, cry and scream?'

Three months on, “The Lost Boys” is the most Tony-nominated show of the Broadway season, up for 12 awards including best musical, best featured actor (Bourzgui) and best featured actress (Shoshana Bean). Like the film, the musical follows Michael, his comic-book-nerd brother Sam (Benjamin Pajak) and their newly divorced mom Lucy (Bean) as they move to the California coast for a fresh start.

But the town has been plagued by a string of mysterious disappearances – and Michael’s new group of goth-rockin’, night-owl pals just might be the cause.

Helmed by Joel Schumacher, the cult classic movie helped launch Corey Haim and Alex Winter to stardom, although it’s hardly an obvious pick for a Broadway show with its gory body horror. Musical versions of “Dracula,” “Lestat” and “Dance of the Vampires” have also been infamous Broadway flops, although two-time Tony winner Michael Arden (“Maybe Happy Ending”) was undaunted.

Past vampire shows have been “either completely silly or completely serious. You need both in order to buy into the world,” says Arden, “The Lost Boys” director and co-lighting designer. “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 had never seen the film before the COVID lockdown, but was instantly drawn to its mix of a sexy teen drama with a campy yet terrifying adventure.

“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.”

He enlisted one of his favorite bands, The Rescues, to pen the show’s 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 was admittedly obsessed with the movie growing up, although Hornsby had only watched it once before signing on. But he quickly picked up on the feverish fandom around the material.

“When I started telling people I was working on this, I’d just see it in their reactions,” Hornsby 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 film’s memorable bike chase and bathtub are blessedly intact, as is the iconic sequence of Michael and the vamps leaping from a bridge to avoid an oncoming train.

“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?’” Hoch recalls. “But the vampires have to fly,” and ultimately, “we were just wide-eyed in the theater watching what Michael Arden and his team came up with.”

'This show is a spectacle, but it's healing as well'

For all its technical marvels, “The Lost Boys” is a human story at its core. Michael is given more space to grapple with his monstrous, abusive father. Lucy and the queer-coded Sam are similarly fleshed out, as is Michael’s love interest, Star (Maria Wirries).

“The women have conflict and desire and a reason for moving forward, which didn’t really exist in the movie,” Bean says. “It’s been nice to have a little meat on the bones.”

On a daily basis, Bean and Benet witness the deep impact the show is having. Many theatergoers come dressed in their goth-grunge best and bearing fanart of the cast. One woman and her service dog have seen the musical 28 times so far.

“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 has also had emotional interactions with young people at the stage door.

“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,” Benet 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.’

“I’ve been there; those words resonate with me every single night,” Benet 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?”