On a drizzly day in the first week of March, I headed to the Palace Theatre to observe a flying rehearsal during the tech period of Broadway’s new musical “The Lost Boys.” Up the escalator of the newly renovated Broadway house, I eked sideways through narrow passages between trunks in the Palace lobby, around racks of clothing and shelves of electrical tape and down the center aisle of the orchestra. Director Michael Arden stood in the aisle, which was covered in plastic to protect the carpeting from the rigors of tech. “And go,” Arden echoed on the god mic. Like syrup down the bark of a tree, four chains descended from the rafters of the Palace stage’s fly space. On each chain, an actor hung upside down like a bat, or those other blood-sucking mammals: vampires.
Based on the 1987 Warner Brothers film of the same name, “The Lost Boys” is a vampire story. And while the legacy of vampire musicals may be troubled, Arden and his team set out, first and foremost, to make a compelling and emotional musical. “The Lost Boys” begins as Lucy Emerson and her teenage sons, Michael and Sam, escape an abusive past in Phoenix for Lucy’s coastal hometown of Santa Carla, California. Lucy vows to them that there will be “no more monsters” in their future, but Michael, yearning for a place to belong, is drawn to a band of brothers — a literal musical band — who also happen to be undead creatures of the night.
With “The Lost Boys,” Arden has helmed one of Broadway’s most massive musicals in years. That scale applies to every aspect of the project. The team: The creatives under Arden include two book writers, three composer-lyricists, two choreographers and four orchestrators. (Not to mention that Arden is also one co-lighting designer of two and there are also two aerial designers.) The company: “The Lost Boys” boasts an onstage cast of 22 and an orchestra of 15 — what’s considered larger these days. The budget: The musical was capitalized at $25 million, not the most exorbitant by today’s standards, but certainly big-budget. The visibility: An adaptation of a Warner Brothers property and another attempt to make the vampire genre successful. The visuals: Between a motorcycle chase and vampire flight, actors dangling from bridges and one levitating without a wire in sight, pyrotechnic sparks crackling and hazy smoke billowing, this musical gives new meaning to the word spectacular. And yet, “The Lost Boys” isn’t giant for the sake of it. Rather, the material demands its largess.
“Vampires are dealing with never-ending life and the key to eternal youth. Those are big ideas,” urged Arden, who is nominated for his direction and co-lighting design of the musical. And so he set out to create a musical to match. Which is why he chose the Rescues to write the musical’s score — Arden knew the band could write songs that would be “dark and mysterious and anthemic and soaring and sweeping and as emotionally operatic as vampires.”
But then the visual scope of the production needed to match that level, while also containing the intimate story about this family trio and the vulnerability in a search for belonging. Arden called on his usual co-conspirator: scenic designer Dane Laffrey. The pair has worked in lockstep since their high school days at Interlochen Arts Academy, leading to their Broadway directorial and designing debuts, respectively, with the 2015 revival of “Spring Awakening” up through last year’s Tony Award-winning Best Musical “Maybe Happy Ending” and this season’s “The Queen of Versailles.”
Laffrey’s set accomplishes a similar trick — combining grandeur and warmth. It’s three stories high — each level is functional with an onstage, operational elevator — but it also sits at a 30-degree angle relative to the straight edge of the stage’s front lip. That angle creates an off-kilter and mysterious vibe — perfect for the supernatural — but it also condenses the space for scenes in which the character of Michael and his mom are fighting in their kitchen or when the coven of vampires try to seduce Michael to join their ranks.“Even if you’re standing in the back corner of [the set], which kind of feels too far upstage, it’s actually a really strong position and you can play a whole scene there — it doesn’t feel too vast or too far away,” said Laffrey, who is Tony-nominated for his scenic design of “The Lost Boys.” “It’s a delightfully mercurial space.” Because alongside the snug feeling, there is also a cavernous sensibility.
