The Allure of Soaring, Blood and Rock ‘n’ Roll in ‘The Lost Boys’
Director Michael Arden and his cast on how this vampire musical taps into adolescent
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Vampirism casts its spell early in The Lost Boys, the new Broadway musical based on the beloved 1987 cult flick. Before the curtain even rises, an alluring voice whispers from all sides of the vast Palace Theatre, beckoning: “Join us…“
Eternal life has never looked more appealing than in this sumptuous spectacle. Thanks to aerial stunts and special effects, vampires soar gracefully through the air in director Michael Arden’s majestic staging. They also lead a kick-ass rock band, belting out heart-pounding anthems composed by the indie group The Rescues.
No wonder the confused, adrift teenagers at the center of this show are seduced. Drinking blood could hardly be worse than the devastating agony of adolescence.
Like the movie, The Lost Boys centers on a pair of brothers: rebellious teenager Michael and his nerdy younger sibling Sam Emerson (newcomer LJ Benet and Benjamin Pajak from Oliver! at Encores!). With their overwhelmed mother Lucy (two-time Tony nominee Shoshana Bean), they flee their abusive father and move to her coastal hometown of Santa Clara, California, hoping for a fresh start. After flirting with the enigmatic Star (Maria Wirries), Michael gets mixed up with the biker fang gang, led by the scarily sexy David (Ali Louis Bourzgui), and Sam teams up with a vampire-hunting duo (Jennifer Duka and Miguel Gil) to rescue his brother and defeat the undead.
This coming-of-age story returns Arden to his roots—his breakthrough as a Broadway director was Deaf West’s 2015 revival of Spring Awakening,set in stifling 19th-century Germany. For The Lost Boys, the suffocating society is late ’80s America amid its obsession with the traditional nuclear family. In both musicals, a soulful rock score gives voice to the inner tumult of adolescents struggling to find their place in the world.
“Both shows are about struggling against repression to find a greater sense of self-acceptance, understanding and recognition,” says Arden, who’s won Tony Awards for directing Parade and Maybe Happy Ending. “That elevated sense of desire and need, that explosion of the soul, is best helped by music.”
In David and his Lost Boys, Michael discovers a musical sound that speaks to the torment in his soul. The band is first introduced with the roof-raising anthem “Have to Have You,” led by a silky-smooth Bourzgui. Michael is hooked.
“The Rescues did such an incredible job creating such a captivating sound for Michael to be lured in with,” says Benet, who’s making his Broadway debut in the musical. “It’s beautiful, anthemic, soft, intimate. The Lost Boys’ sound is the anthem that beats inside Michael’s chest.”
His connection to the clan deepens after Michael follows the vampires to their lair, where David leads the Boys in a haunting a cappella, a kind of primeval siren song. “It is like an ancient musical spell passed through centuries,” explains Arden. “It’s not just modern music that shapes their sound but classical as well.”
Haunted by the violence he experienced at his father’s hands, Michael is searching for an escape. Despite seeming so cool, confident and in control, David sees something of himself in Michael’s agony.
“David sees the same kind of trauma that he went through,” says Bourzgui. “He thinks he can give Michael a ticket out of that pain with the gift of immortality.”
Details are scant about David’s origins in David Hornsby and Chris Hoch’s book. But Bourzgui likes the mystery and keeps the details of his own imagined backstory to himself. “I think he lost a lot of people,” says Bourzgui. “Deep inside, he knows that the gift of immortality doesn’t fix that pain. But in order to pretend that that’s not true, he is forcing that gift onto others.”
Equally crucial to the temptation of vampire life is, of course, the flying, and Arden had a very specific vision for the aerial design. “I wanted it to be beautiful and elegiac, almost like dance in a way, and an extension of the music,” he says. “Flying is the ultimate expression of worship for them, and it should exude joy.”
In balletic sequences designed by Gwyneth Larsen and Bill Mulholland of 5th Wall Studio, an aerial and aerobics training studio in Brooklyn, the vampires ascend thrillingly, yet with a melancholy air. In the six months of prep work, Bourzgui focused on making the flying look like it was second nature to David, almost pedestrian despite its splendor.
“It’s almost like walking for us,” he says while also acknowledging that “David still finds moments of real peace when he’s flying with his brothers—and with Michael.”
For all the incredible temptations of vampire life, both in music and movement, Michael resists the pressure to feed on human flesh, stranding him in a liminal state. His younger sibling, Sam, never loses faith in his big brother.
“Sam knows his brother better than he knows himself,” says Pajak. “He knows that Michael has too much love for his family to ever fully join” the vampires.
To reconnect his brother to the love of his own family, Sam must overcome his nervous dorkiness and discover the “Superhero” inside himself, a journey that culminates in an exuberant ensemble number led by Pajak.
Sam’s superhero power is not flying or strength, but rather keen wit, careful observation and critical thought—the very skills that make him, ultimately, uninterested in the base attractions of undead life.
And it is Sam who ultimately pulls his brother back to humanity—not despite the pain they’ve suffered together, but precisely because of it.
“Sometimes we have to choose to forgive ourselves, and each other, in order to strengthen the relationships we already have,” says Arden. Benet concurs. “Michael’s realization is: I’ve already felt the greatest pain imaginable; now, I have the opportunity to experience the greatest love possible,” he says. “But for that, you have to choose life. That’s the true battle.”
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