Quick Take
A cult vampire movie filmed in Santa Cruz has become one of Broadway's most unexpected hits. But can the spirit of Santa Carla survive the journey from Boardwalk to Broadway?
Part 2 of a three-part series exploring the enduring lure of “The Lost Boys,” from its roots in 1980s Santa Cruz to Broadway and beyond. Read Part 1 here.
Times Square’s energy is sensory overload. Crowds surge below looming billboards and flashing lights. Taxi horns echo off skyscrapers. Music blasts from all sides. The evening’s street dancing was thanks to Madonna’s unexpected live pop-up concert.
Being here with my sister Valerie – a longtime costume designer who has spent more than two decades working on Broadway productions – instantly brought to mind the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Both places thrive on spectacle, crowds and the feeling that something unexpected might happen at any moment.
Swept up in the chaos, we carved a path toward the Palace Theatre on West 47th Street. There, a shining marquee carried a name neither of these Santa Carla sisters ever expected to see glowing above a New York sidewalk:
“The Lost Boys.”
Now, after tracing the history of “The Lost Boys” through Santa Cruz, I was about to watch Santa Carla come to life again – this time on a Broadway stage.
Forty years after Joel Schumacher turned Santa Cruz into the fictional town of Santa Carla, creating a vampire film that became a beloved cult classic, the story has made the unlikely journey from the Boardwalk to Broadway.
The question was no longer whether “The Lost Boys” deserved its place in pop culture history. It was now whether Broadway could capture the feeling that made the movie endure in the first place.
Not just the vampires, motorcycles and a famous soundtrack. But the feeling.
The raw ache of being young. The urgent pull to belong. The fierce tension between the family you’re born into and the family you choose. The haunting magic of a seaside town, where danger crackles beside freedom.
Those ideas helped turn a modest vampire movie into a cultural touchstone. They are also the reason “The Lost Boys” continues to resonate today. Inside the theater, the energy was electric. Tourists, theater lovers, celebrities and vampire fans had all gathered for the same reason. To see the musical everyone is buzzing about.
Among the show’s executive producers is actor Patrick Wilson. The list of co-producers includes Slash of Guns N’ Roses fame and actor Kiefer Sutherland, the original David. It’s a fitting full-circle moment for a production that celebrates the movie’s legacy while reinventing it.
While many reviewers are asking whether “The Lost Boys” works as a musical, I found myself asking a different question: What survived the journey from Santa Cruz to Broadway?
The answer, surprisingly, is quite a lot.
The adaptation, featuring a book by David Hornsby and Chris Hoch, music and lyrics by The Rescues, and direction by Michael Arden, wisely avoids recreating the film scene for scene.
The Broadway version isn’t interested in preserving “The Lost Boys” in amber. It wants to introduce it to a new generation.
Characters have been expanded, relationships deepened and storylines reshaped. Many fan-favorite lines from the film are in there. Yet some things have changed.
Laddie, the child vampire, is gone. Grandpa is gone. The Emerson family arrives in California following his death, hoping for a fresh start. Michael and Sam’s abusive father becomes a recurring ghostly presence. Yet the musical preserves the elements that matter most: the tension between family and freedom, the seductive appeal of David’s vampire tribe, the humor of the Frog Brothers and the burning desire to belong that has always sat at the center of the story.
One of the smartest changes may be David and the Lost Boys themselves.
Rather than simply being a vampire gang, they are now a rock band performing at the Boardwalk bandstand, with David front and center as lead singer.
It’s a brilliant choice.
David already carried himself like a rock star in the film. Broadway simply hands him a microphone.
The Lost Boys are no longer simply a gang. They’ve become the thing every teenager secretly wants: a band, a tribe, a family. That’s the secret sauce that makes this musical tick.
The first time the Lost Boys appear, the production explodes into full-blown 1980s metal spectacle. David (Ali Louis Bourzgui) and Star (Maria Wirries) command the scene like rock royalty, singing, “Have to Have You.” The ensemble crowds the front of the stage as fans waving their arms in the air. It’s reminiscent of the Boardwalk beach scene in the movie.
On an upper level of the set stands the infamous oil-covered Sax Guy, played by Cameron Loyal. It’s a perfect nod to the film, and you realize you are in for some serious fun. The high-energy sequence earns one of the evening’s first huge audience reactions.
The Boardwalk dominates much of the production. Dane Laffrey’s towering three-story carnival set is drenched in neon and crowned by a glowing Santa Carla arch. It becomes a Broadway reimagining of Santa Cruz. The Boardwalk bandstand is the home base for David and the Lost Boys. Familiar landmarks emerge: a Metro-style bus stop covered with missing-person posters, a comic shop called Coronado Comics, pilings beneath the wharf complete with seal-viewing telescopes at the railing, and real bonfires on the beach.
One particularly beautiful sequence unfolds beneath a star-filled sky as Michael and Star fall in love in the shadow of the giant Santa Carla billboard. The letters are filled with images of the Giant Dipper, the Sky Glider, and the Ferris wheel, creating one of the production’s most effective love letters to the city that inspired it all.
Much of the show’s success comes from Dane Laffrey’s scenic design, Ryan Park’s costumes, Jen Schriever and Michael Arden’s co-lighting design and Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant’s aerial choreography.
Visually? It’s jaw-dropping.
Director Arden and designer Laffrey seem to live for impossible theatrical puzzles – and then actually solve them.
How do you transform a cult vampire movie built on cinematic visuals into a live theatrical experience?
How do you stage motorcycle racing through the fog?
How do you recreate the underside of the Santa Cruz Wharf?
How do you make vampires fly?
How do you hang actors upside down 50 feet in the air?
Again and again, the creative team finds answers.
This isn’t your standard musical. It’s more like a magic show in disguise. Every time you think you’ve seen the biggest trick, they pull out another one.
The Boardwalk materializes in neon. Vampires soar through the air. Sets appear from everywhere, showing us two levels of Grandpa’s house, below the wharf – and yes, even the bathtub for one of the iconic moments toward the end.
Every few minutes, the production unveils another impossible image.
Equally impressive is Schriever and Arden’s lighting design. The production understands that vampires are creatures of darkness. Light is used almost like another character in the story. Pools of illumination draw the audience’s attention exactly where it needs to be.
At times, the lighting feels cinematic. At others, it feels supernatural.
The result is a visual language that mirrors the show’s central themes, constantly balancing darkness and light, danger and safety, family and temptation.
Bourzgui, as David, has the unenviable task of stepping into the boots once worn by Sutherland. Rather than imitate the original performance, Bourzgui wisely makes the role his own. Equal parts rock star, predator, and charismatic cult leader, he understands exactly how to lure Michael into the fold. He is sexy and fantastic.
LJ Benet’s Michael Emerson is convincingly adrift, making his draw to David’s world believable.
The show’s emotional backbone, however, belongs to Shoshana Bean as Lucy Emerson – a single mom jugging so much. Her powerhouse vocals bring depth and vulnerability to a role that is significantly expanded from the film.
Her Act 2 showstopper, “Wild,” becomes a raw meditation on aging, reinvention and the urgent desire to feel fully alive again. As abandoned Boardwalk rides slowly come back to life around her, every audience member over 40 can relate to the song’s aching message.
The number brought down the house.
Act 2 also leans heavily into the campy fun that has always existed inside “The Lost Boys,” and the audience happily comes along for the ride.
Edgar Frog, played by Miguel Gil, remains gloriously committed to comic books, vampire lore, and Rambo-inspired bravado. Alan Frog, played by Jennifer Duka, is now a girl, though nobody seems particularly concerned. They’re still the Frog Brothers. She has fierce, yet endearing, energy and somehow it works perfectly.
One of the evening’s biggest crowd-pleasers belongs to Benjamin Pajak as Sam Emerson. In his exuberant musical number “Superpower,” a parade of brightly costumed superheroes fills the stage in a gloriously camp celebration of identity and self-acceptance. What begins as comic fun evolves into something unexpectedly moving when Sam “comes out,” and the audience erupts into cheers.
During Pride month, the moment landed as both joyful and affirming, giving Sam a character arc that feels contemporary while remaining true to the outsider spirit that has always lived at the heart of “The Lost Boys.”
Again, the musical isn’t changing the story. It’s amplifying themes that were already there.
But hang on, there’s more.
If there is a single moment that encapsulates why the production has become one of Broadway’s hottest tickets, it is the train-trestle sequence. Honestly, if the show had done nothing else all night, this scene alone would have been worth the ticket.
The combination of Laffrey’s scenic design, Schriever and Arden’s lighting and the Grants’ aerial choreography creates a moment of genuine theatrical wonder.
Just when it seems the set has revealed all its secrets, an enormous train bridge descends from the fly space, staying some 30 feet above the stage. Heavy fog swirls below. A train rumbles toward the vampires as they dare Michael to jump into the abyss below.
One by one, the vampires release their grip and disappear into the darkness.
Then Michael jumps.
What follows is one of the most breathtaking pieces of stagecraft I have ever witnessed. Suspended in midair, Michael drifts through space in slow motion, singing about his longing to belong somewhere, to someone.
The vampires rise back up through the fog to catch him. This isn’t clunky flying, folks. It’s dreamlike and breathtaking.
The aerial work, developed with Flying By Foy and rehearsed for months before opening, allows the actors to move through the air with remarkable fluidity. At times, they appear less like performers suspended on wires and more like dancers floating through a dream. And perhaps a little terrifying.
Night after night, performers launch themselves into darkness, hang inverted from chains during the vampire cave scenes and soar high above the stage in sequences that require extraordinary trust and precision.
The effect is magical.
And for a brief moment, Broadway achieves something extraordinary. The visual spectacle and emotional story become one and the same.
But, even powerful performances can’t change the uneven score by The Rescues. While several songs stand out, portions of the score begin to blur together. A handful of ballads occupy similar emotional territory and could have been trimmed.
Still, David’s haunting “Time to Kill” beneath the wharf is mesmerizing. “Come Be Made Anew” transforms the vampires’ invitation into something almost spiritual, with its a cappella harmonies that are both gorgeous and chilling.
All in all, the performances and visual spectacle were magnificent – and isn’t this why we come to Broadway to begin with?
After the rousing standing ovation (and a surprising epilogue I won’t give away), a frenzied crowd of fans gather outside the stage door, hoping for autographs from the cast.
Valerie and I went in the opposite direction.
We were ushered backstage by associate costume designer Michael Schaffner, allowing us to step behind the curtain and into the machinery that brings Santa Carla to life eight times a week.
If the production itself feels like a magic trick, Schaffner is among those helping make the illusion possible.
Working alongside costume designer Park, Schaffner takes the designer’s sketches and makes them reality. He oversees budgets, coordinates construction and assembles the wardrobe team that maintains the production throughout its run.
The costumes themselves are built by a network of Broadway craftspeople and Garment District specialists, while vintage pieces are increasingly sourced through Etsy and social media marketplaces.
Like much of the production, the costumes are inspired by the film without being confined by it.
“We wanted the costumes to be connected to the film, but also separate entities,” Schaffner explained.
One interesting concept involved the vampires themselves. Rather than dressing them all as products of 1987, the design team, along with Bourzgui’s character development, imagined each vampire costume as having a distinct era.
Bourzgui’s David wears a dramatic Victorian-inspired duster. Marko carries a distinct 1970s vibe. Dwayne feels rooted in punk culture. Together, they create the impression that David has been gathering followers for decades rather than simply leading a group of contemporary teenagers.
“The costumes give you little clues about time passing,” Schaffner said. “It’s not just one single 1980s silhouette.”
Schaffner then offered a full backstage tour and a walk onto the stage.
The recently restored Palace Theatre is a world unto itself. Raised roughly 30 feet during its renovation, the building now contains multiple levels. From the audience perspective, it feels effortless. Backstage, it’s an intricate maze of steel, catwalks, staircases and hidden spaces.
Stepping onto the stage was a surprisingly emotional moment, seeing the three-story set tower overhead like a small city. Standing beneath it, looking out into the 1,600-seat theater gave me a whole new appreciation for the scale of what happens here every night.
One of the biggest surprises?
There are only four major lifts built into the stage floor – but during the performance it appeared to be dozens. Trap doors that appear and disappear are actually elevators. Scenic elements rise silently from below. Performers emerge from seemingly nowhere. Entire environments transform in seconds. It’s all rather miraculous and carefully engineered.
It struck me how much of the evening depended on trust. Trust between actors and technicians. Trust between designers and craftspeople.
Trust between performers flying through the darkness and the crews responsible for getting them safely back to the ground.
What audiences experience as magic is actually the result of hundreds of artists solving impossible problems together.
And that may be the most Broadway thing of all.
As I left the Palace Theatre, I again thought of just how unlikely this entire journey has been.
A group of filmmakers came to Santa Cruz in 1986 looking for something different. They found a beach town with a little edge, a place filled with surfers, punks, artists, dreamers and outsiders. What they couldn’t have known was that decades later, the story they created beneath the lights of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk would be playing to sold-out audiences on Broadway, earning a dozen Tony nominations (it won four on Sunday night) and introducing an entirely new generation to the world of Santa Carla.
Broadway has given “The Lost Boys” a dazzling new stage, but what ultimately makes the story endure is the same thing that made the movie resonate back in 1987: the search for belonging and the hope that somewhere out there are people who understand who you are.
Judging by the standing ovation inside the Palace Theatre and the fans returning to see the show again and again, those themes still have plenty of life left in them.
Now it’s time to bring The Boys home, to Santa Carla West.
Want to go backstage at “The Lost Boys” on Broadway? Check out the video here.
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