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AI the to do list doesn't stop, and neither does the pressure to keep up with it if you've been running on fumes. Grow Therapy makes it easier to find care that's covered by insurance and actually built around you. Whether it's your first time in therapy or your 50th. Grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you, not the other way around. You can search by what matters like insurance, specialty, identity or availability and get started in as little as two days. And if something comes up, you can cancel. Cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost. Grow helps you find therapy on your time. Whatever challenges you're facing, Grow Therapy is here to help. Grow accepts over 100 insurance plans. Sessions average about $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Visit growththerapy.com acast today to get started. That's growtherapy.com acast growtherapy.com acast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan,
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not blood grape juice. Let me introduce you to Broadway's most recent new arrival, a damn blood sucking vampire musical. How the hell does this movie work on stage? What's the material like? Doesn't Broadway hate vampire musicals? It is finally time for us to talk about the Lost Boys. But just before we do, quick introduction to me. For those of you meeting me for the very first time. Oh my God. Hey. Welcome to my theatre themed YouTube channel or hello. Hello to those of you listening to this review on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I am a professional theatre critic here on social media and I spend my entire life flying around the world, usually in planes, not like a bat, seeing as much fantastic theatre as I can. Currently I'm in New York seeing as many of the new spring openings as possible and this is just one of two dozen shows I will have seen during my trip. Stay tuned for the reviews of the rest of them, but for today all all we are going to talk about is the Lost boys. Not only Broadway's final opening night of the 20252026 season, but also in many ways the most anticipated new musical and one of the largest we've seen in terms of its physical production in many years. Epic shows like this don't come along that often. There's also some much talked about history of vampire musicals not doing particularly well on Broadway, as well as plenty of conversation about the amount of existing intellectual property, specifically the number of films being turned into stage musicals. But something about this show defies all of the discourse. And regardless of your feelings about any of the above, this has to be seen to be believed. It is currently playing at the Palace Theatre in New York. I saw the final press preview performance before its opening and now I am so excited to tell you what I thought about every single aspect of this production. The material, the creative choices, the performances. We're going to talk about all of it. If you have had the opportunity to see the Lost Boys on Broadway already, let me know what you thought in the comments section down below. And if you'd like to hear more of my reviews, make sure to subscribe here on YouTube or follow me on podcast platforms. You can also subscribe to my free weekly substack email newsletter to stay up to date with all of the shows that I'm seeing and over the next couple of weeks you can look forward to not only many more Broadway and Off Broadway reviews, but also my coverage of the Tony Award nominations. In the meantime though, and not to get ahead of ourselves, let's talk about the Lost Boys. So this is a brand new Broadway musical which made its world premiere earlier this month in New York with no pre Broadway run, no out of town tryout. It is Based on the 1987 film of the same name written by Jeffrey Bohm, Janice Fisher and James Jeremias and directed by Joel Schumacher So many J's. And it tells the story of two adolescent brothers who move with their mother to Santa Carla, California from Phoenix, Arizona. Whereupon the elder of the two, named Michael, becomes acquainted with a colorful young gang who turn out to be very vampires. He is enticed into their blood sucking world via his instant attraction to a young woman who is among them, whose name is Star, as well as their charismatic leader named David, played on screen by Kiefer Sutherland. His younger brother Sam, meanwhile, is enlisted by two plucky vampire hunters who call themselves the Frog Brothers. And just like all of your other favorite vampire stories, the stakes are high and made of wood. In terms of taking this iconic film and turning it into a stage musical, there are immediate challenges and not just because of the logistics of the whole thing. It culminates in this extended combat sequence in which the good guys have banded together to try and protect their home against multiple vampire attacks. We also have the obvious challenge of flight. More on that in just a moment. But beyond anything else, it's the tone of the film and I think a lot of pieces of cinema from that era specifically that don't necessarily sit as neatly as we would nowadays like them to. Is this a tense, dark, dramatic thriller? Is it more of a campy comedy? The answer is that it exists and always has done somewhere in between those two ideas. It is gothic, but it is also campy. It is also a coming of age story. And in addition to all of that, it is a beloved cult classic with a legion of fans who have high expectations. So in addition to the extraordinary complexity of putting this story on stage, one that doesn't seem to immediately cry out for the musical theater treatment, you also have to figure out where it sits tonally, and I think being a musical helps it along the way. There's something sort of inherently campy about telling a dramatic story using 80s rock anthem power ballads with a sort of a Christian rock sound to them. Let me tell you a little bit more about the score and this material. The music and lyrics as well as the orchestrations and the arrangements have been provided by the rescues. They are Kyla Englund, Adrian Gonzalez and Gabriel Mann, recording artists making their musical theater debut. It's also a Broadway debut for the book writers David Hornsby and Chris Hock. Likewise, and this is interesting, interesting. Multiple among the shows, celebrity producers, including some of the lead producers have appeared on Broadway, but this is their first time in a producing role. In other words, very little about this massive multi million dollar production is being done traditionally now. I briefly described the character of the score already, it is very 80s, it's very rock and roll. One of the biggest changes to the narrative is that the Lost Boys themselves, this gang of adolescent vampires, are no longer simply a biker gang, they are now also a band. And that makes sense in terms of transposing this into the world of musical theatre. These are characters who are going to sing anyway. Now they have a couple moments of diegetic singing. It kind of bleeds between the two because they are performing, rocking out, playing instruments to an orchestra pit, mosh pit of adoring fans. When we first meet them, this is their first entrance, led by Ali Louis Borski playing the role of David. But when they perform subsequently, it kind of falls somewhere between diegetic and non diegetic performances. There is also plenty of non diegetic song throughout the show. The opening number is kind of traditional contemporary musical theater. Surprisingly given, the songwriters and the score ultimately ends up feeling like a hybrid between more traditional theatrical sounding songs and more sort of Christian rock adjacent 80s power ballad thrash metal Y moments. The difference between the two representing not only Michael's seduction into the world of vampirism, but also the darkness and threat of the whole thing taking over this family and this town and this community. When Michael's mother, Lucy, played by Broadway veteran Shoshana Bean, begins to remember her hippie youth and kind of leans into the freedom of embracing her wild days, she starts to kind of move more towards that kind of a sound as well. And there are a handful of really thrilling and dynamic melodies in the first act. There are a couple of moments of acapella harmony which are beautifully haunting for David and the vampire characters, especially the sound that they find for them as their musical voice makes perfect sense. The lyrics for the most part are a little more generic, especially in the opening number. They're not going to strike you as particularly intelligent. And for some of the diegetic songs like I have to have You. I don't know if this is meant to feel more in tribute to kind of classic rock songs, but even if you think about a lot of great classic rock, there's a poetry to some of those lyrics and the use of metaphor and dark imagery that I think we probably could have used a little bit more of in some of these. It's part of the reason why not all of these songs are necessarily going to feel that lastingly impactful. They work very well in the moment. They deliver a vibe. I don't know how many of them you'll be able to recall. Subsequently, I'm curious as to how this score sits with people and grows on people. I do think its best qualities are a handful of the Act 1 melodies which are Mercedes, mysterious and romantic and epic. When you hear them again in the on tract heading back into the second act, it's genuinely exciting for anyone looking for a ranking of scores and similarly sort of epic cinematic musicals. This is obviously not as strong a score as Wicked, but it's better than a Back to the Future. Now let's talk a little about the book. And it's a fairly reliable adaptation of the film with a couple of changes. We find out quite quickly that the grandpa character from the movie is not going to be making appearance in the stage show when Shoshana Bean's character picks up an urn that he is inside. And for curious fans of the film, yes, the iconic oily, saxophone playing man does make an appearance in the show as well. He is noticed by Sam when he and his mother are heading into town to kind of suss out the local character, Sam, who remains as he is in the film, a queer coded young character that gets played on a little bit more. And he has a very satisfying arc teaming up with the Frog Brothers trying to save his newly recruited vampire brother. He eventually gets a stranger song in the second act called My Superpower when he kind of discovers his own strength and purpose. Almost an oversimplification of this song could be him coming to terms with his queer identity and how that helps him to be able to notice things and save the day. It's a more adolescent moment of the show, which is still trying to balance all of these different tonal qualities. And it very much contrasts the nature of the scenes that Michael has with Star, all of this brooding, romantic dialogue, also his dark encounters with David and the kind of mysterious, spooky and seductive quality of all of those. And that song feels like a moment that people are going to have strong, different opinions about. I think it comes down to almost a sort of a tasting preference. Do you drink your vodka with soda or do you drink it with Sprite? Were you expecting this to be a dark, gothic vampire musical that kind of sticks to its own seriousness and takes itself utterly seriously? Or do you enjoy the inherent campy quality of it? This has always been something of a youthful story. This character has always injected a certain amount of comic relief. And for us to have a colorful, vibrant, very different, but unashamed moment, that sort of signals adolescent, queer acceptance of, I think, is an important component of the bigger story that they're trying to tell here with the Lost Boys, because against all odds this giant vampire musical has managed to find a way to try and say something. And I always like shows to be able to do that. I don't know that I was expecting this to really concern itself with having a strong message, but they do their best in some of these Act 2 book scenes and even in the way the show is immediately introduced. I'll talk more about some specific scenes and staging moments a little bit later. But as we begin with historic footage of Ronald Reagan talking about family values, and into the second act, when a character named Max, who is the proprietor of a video store, is talking about this generation of abandoned and neglected young men, Lost Boys, you might say they really are trying to articulate something about young men without a strong male role model or with negative male role models, which can come into conversation with the world in which we are living today, with the manosphere of it all. Can't believe I'm having that conversation. Can't believe the Lost Boys is entering into that conversation. But it is a little bit. It's not a heavy handed kind of a message, but it's there if you want to see it. They're not necessarily digging their teeth all the way in, but they're scratching out it a little bit. And if Michael's character, played by L.J. bennett, is led towards making one kind of choice here as a result of of his challenging family situation, then Sam makes a very different one. I should point out that the key motivation of Michael as our protagonist is to find some sense of family and fulfillment and safety after the home that he knew before became violent after he was physically abused by his father. And that's a backstory that gets nodded too extensively. It isn't particularly neatly presented to us. So we're left with a handful of questions about where he place blame, about exactly what he feels resentful about, the extent to which he blames his mother, why he wants to spend so little time in their new home. We get just enough to justify him being like, nobody wants me here. I'm going to go and explore the boardwalk. But we don't really dig into the why. There is one messy little book scene when he's arguing with his brother Sam, and Sam says, I'm just going to go back and live with dad. He was always fine with me. Only by the end of the scene he lashes out at his brother by saying, you know who you sound like, dad? This obvious monster who moments ago I implied I had very few negative memories of Meanwhile, Michael strikes back at his brother by saying, you wouldn't know about it. You were always hiding in your room when he was presumably like 12 years old. We could unpack a lot of this and the way in which he had to become an adult and the way in which he had to protect his brother who wasn't able to perceive as much of it because he was sheltered from it. But we don't really go there. We just throw these slightly contradictory statements around and generally that's the level of character depth that we achieve with just about everyone. From Star One of the vampire characters who is reluctant to make her first kill and become a full vampire by eating Michael the night that she meets him and offers to pierce his ears, we find out that she has this tragic and challenging backstory, but we only learn enough about it to justify her looking sort of sad and wistful and eponinish. All of which is to say, if we're really looking at what is on the page and the script and the score and the craft of musical theater writing, this is not necessarily pushing the genre in any kind of exciting, bold new direction. It is, alongside many other film to stage adaptations that we have seen in the past, a good enough functional version of this story on stage with a handful of compelling musical moments. It isn't a top tier example among the sub genre. What makes this special, dare I say extraordinary, is the way that it's been staged. Let me talk to you now about what this production actually looks like, how they make this work on stage, and the work of Director
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this episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.
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The to do list doesn't stop and neither does the pressure to keep up with it if you've been running on fumes. Grow Therapy makes it easier to find care that's covered by insurance and actually built around you, whether it's your first time in therapy or your 50th. Grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you, not the other way around. You can search by what matters like insurance, specialty, identity or availability and get started in as little as two days. And if something comes up, you can Cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost. Grow helps you find therapy on your time, whatever challenges you're facing. Grow therapy is here to help grow. Accepts over 100 insurance plans. Sessions average about $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0, depending on their plan. Visit growththerapy.com acast today to get started. That's growtherapy.com acast growtherapy.com ac availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
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Michael Arden. Now Michael Arden is becoming one of Broadway's favorite directors, particularly of musicals at the moment. He recently found success with the revival of Parade, the new musical maybe Happy Ending. Already two utterly distinct projects and where we have a lot of other directors like the Jamie Lloyds of this world, where it's easier to discern their sort of prevalent style, Michael Arden is a difficult one to anticipate. He does seem to meet each project where it is. There is an increasingly ambitious quality, especially to his aesthetic delivery of a lot of these shows. Everything about maybe Happy Ending, technologically that felt cutting edge and exciting is pushed even further with the Lost Boys. And the structure of the whole thing is built for thrill. It is designed to enthrall you, to make your jaw drop from the off and to keep it there. The actual experience of sitting down and watching this show felt not dissimilar to Stranger Things. The first Shadow currently also running on Broadway at the Marquee Theater. It has likewise a sort of a prologue. There is a policeman that enters into this dark, seemingly abandoned ironworks, this massive three tier set that we're only beginning to glimpse as he is illuminating parts of it with a flashlight. We're eerily anticipating the arrival of these vampire characters. It's a spine tingling introduction to the story which offers us our first experience of the way in which they're using flight. And I'm going to talk about the way in which the performers are flown around the space and some really striking specific moments. But in general, what I love about the way this is staged and the visual language of the whole thing is flight is a huge component of that language. When we then meet the Emersons and they have these different giant signs behind them as they move from Arizona to California and they move into this new house, the entire top level of this house descends on a platform from above. There are multiple different parts of this enormous, very complicated set that lower up from beneath there is an entire functional elevator shaft. The orchestra pit is no longer solely the home of the musicians because it lowers to be a space for the cast to become a mosh pit for the arrival of the Lost Boys Band. It's also kind of representative of hell. This idea of things descending down to this lower infernal space. Space or rising up into the heavens is played on heavily throughout this production. Flight is the language of the entire thing. Everything is rising or falling throughout. It's a really remarkable set design from Dane Laffrey. We have all of these sort of brickwork walls. You can spend a decent amount of time just staring up at the height of this production. And the scale of the whole thing, it feels familiar of like a giant production of some. We need Todd in the upper sections. But all of this brick is married to steel. And these staircases and these different pieces that come on. It is wildly complicated and it is gorgeously lit by Jen Shriever and director Michael Arden, who is also doubling as co lighting designer. The symphony of light that they create with all of these different sources coming through. There are so many different tunnel exits off of the main space across this three level set, all of which have light creeping through at various different moments. The way we play with darkness, the way we create distinction between daylight and nighttime, the way that we characterize sunsets and those hours in which the Lost Boys can appear and in which Michael can go outside after he's turned into a vampire. I love the kind of complex lighting that you can achieve with so many different things happening at once from so many different sources. And this is a great set for revealing lights from so many different locations. Now we've got to talk about the flying. And there are so many different people responsible for so many different facets of this because we have aerial design, but we also have aerial choreography. Gwyneth Larson and Billy Mulholland are the aerial designers, but the choreography and aerial choreography is by Lauren Yelango Grant and Christopher Cree Grant. While I'm here, Fight direction is from sordelay Inc. With Marcus Moret on special effects design. So many different components of a show like this. It is one of the most complex things I have ever seen achieved on stage. And the way in which they fly. You can occasionally see the wires. It absolutely doesn't matter because the grace of the whole thing and the elegance of it, to see someone slowly descending down from above. There's something I think deeply captivating about seeing somebody flying on stage. I think we as audiences have this absolute fascination with it. It just looks so beautiful. It's so striking. And they play a lot with the speed of movement through the air, Movement that is slower than it ought to be and movement that is rapid and our anticipation of that. There's this iconic scene in which they lead Michael to a Bridge to a railway bridge, and they jump from it into the abyss down below. They simply fall down. And this is one of multiple moments in this production when actors fall at full pace into an uncertain space below. They fall into what used to be the orchestra pit, presumably onto a mat. With another really striking visual later on where the ensemble line up and all take turns to trust, fall backwards into a hole on stage. If you're watching this from one of the upper levels, then you will see what they are disappearing into. If you're watching it from front orchestra, like I was, then they are just falling through the floor at speed and they're gone. It's crazy. Contrastingly, you have these moments of flight where people are moving very steadily, elegantly through the air. Or the moment when Michael himself, after we've seen all of these other characters falling from the bridge, lets go of the thing and then hangs there motionless in the air. And we get a sort of a defying gravity achieved, I think, via much the same sort of technology. The bridge flies out and we see simply him alone in the dark on stage. And rather than doing the epic defying gravity thing, all the lights, all the orchestra, all of the vocals, all of the volume, it is a very still, quiet moment, which I think is the more striking choice, especially because that's what we're anticipating. That's what we've been seeing on Broadway for like 20 years now. To have this unexpected stillness and to have the moment of him letting go be played in this very different way. Beautiful. Absolutely mesmerizing. I want to talk about the designs for the characters. Costume design by Ryan Park. Makeup design by Christina Grant. Hair and wig design by David Brian Brown. I have no idea whose responsibility it is to take care of the vampire fang situation, but that's also very well handled. These characters look fantastic, particularly the vampires, particularly the Lost Boys. They have the most exciting outfits. I mean, sexy saxophone man also styled brilliantly. But my goodness, the looks, the kind of dark, glam rock, leather clad, queer, vibrant aesthetic that they found for these characters makes them so exciting. I think even more so than the film. They are the theatrically realized versions of them that are a little more colorful and inviting and charismatic and charming. You get a sense of. Sense of intimidation from them, but they're also clearly the most interesting people in town. In particular, I think the designs of David and Star are just gorgeous. The costuming, but also the hair choices for each of them. It's really great work. And in the rest of the production's design, some of the Most fun moments come when we get a bit of an aesthetic shift into the second act. Now, when we first met the Frog Brothers back in a comic book shop, in the first act, when they introduced themselves to Sam and tell him about the town's vampire problem, they sing a very intense song, the end of which and his response to which to run out of the store screaming is ultimately played for laughs. The lighting of it and the staging of it is very dark and red and intensity. And I wonder if this ought to be a little bit more light hearted in order to kind of characterize the way that we're going to theatrically tell the subplot. Because at the start of the second act, Sam sings a song reacting to the realization that his brother Michael has become a vampire. It's an almost sort of pre 90s Backstreet Boys, NSync kind of a song about how his brother's a V vampire. And we see all of these cartoonish versions of vampires in this and in later numbers moving across different parts of the stage, occasionally gliding across the stage. The very like, stereotypical cartoonish idea of what a vampire looks like. That same aesthetic continues into Sam's song My Superpower when he is lifted aloft on stage. Again, flight being the visual storytelling language by all of these stereotypically superhero attired ensemble members. Not a lot of what I would call choreography with a capital C in this production. There are moments when we have the ensemble across various levels doing little bits of movement, but there aren't a lot of flout numbers as well. Such the pace of the whole thing definitely slows down in the second act when we shift between a couple of different back to back introspective solos. But it accelerates again for the big vampire battle conclusion. And there are a couple of surprises I don't want to tell you about before the end of the performance. There are plenty of reasons for you to be thrilled, for you to be shocked. There's something about the quality of this entire thing which is both pulse raising and addictive. There's something incredibly exciting about watching the Lost Boys on stage. The energy that it brings to Broadway and the feeling that you have for the duration and then after you leave the theater. It's genuinely very exciting. And it's all been designed in a way to thrill and to entertain. The final component of which is the performances of
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this episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies, try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.
- [27:40]
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This company. So LJ Bennett plays Michael, a character whose name we heard sung and spoken repeatedly throughout this show. Slightly strange experience for me as a Michael watching from the orchestra, and I think his performance really begins to pay off as we head towards the end of the first act into the second. I love all of the material that he has with Star when he immediately is enamored with her and he's chasing after her and he's trying to flirt and she's just trying not to eat him. She's very conflicted about the whole thing at the beginning, you know. We later find out about the abuse that the family are escaping from. That is not the way that their initial travel across the country is characterized to us. When they're like, let's go see the Pacific Ocean, let's leave Arizona. That's not the vibe that we are getting. And he just feels like a generic, broody teen. So when he sings for the first time and the angst level feels an absolute 10 and his face is all scrunched up and he looks devastated, it feels almost as though it's a little unearned and there's nowhere to really go. Like when he's saying, I am moving to this new place and I don't really like it here with my family and I've got like trauma that we haven't really called trauma yet. It's an emotional 10 so when he then realizes he's a vampire, he can't go higher than an emotional tent. So there's a little bit of that to contend with. And I know it's the adolescent thing of thinking every single hardship is the most dramatic thing ever to happen in your life, but we need a little bit of room to grow so that when you become a vampire, you can be more shocked at that. He is a fantastic vocalist, though, and a compelling central presence. I enjoy the whole sort of strained Emerson family dynamic. I want a little bit more sexual tension, because of course I do between Michael and David. But everything that Ali Lewis Borsgi is doing on that stage is so compelling. You long for this character to be more prevalent in the show, for him to come back on stage when he first appears, even though I'd like a slightly more dramatic entrance when maybe he has his back to us and then he turns around as he begins singing something like that, rather than just kind of coming on and singing the song and rising up with the rest of the band every time he arrives, whether he's flying in, whether he is making a sort of sudden entrance in the dark, it is so exciting. It's everything you want this character to be. I saw him first on stage in the who's Tommy? Not a production that I enjoyed, but I noticed immediately he had a very sort of nostalgic quality to his voice. It's very 80s. I always thought it was very like, don't you forget about me. Like, what he has in his tone, it's very covered. The way that he sings in this show is beautifully matched to the music, but also this character voice that he's doing throughout the show as well, where he's like, come be a vampire with us, Michael. It's. It's so fascinating. It's such a departure from roles he's played before. It's an utter transformation. He doesn't look like himself, he doesn't sound like himself. He has at all times this focused and slightly menacing but also slightly flirtatious quality, as he exists in utter control of everything until he doesn't. It makes him a powerful David who is threatening, but who is also seductive. And it's just a great performance. He's also joined by a host of other musically talented vampires, particularly Maria Wer, playing the role of star. I wish that she had a little bit more variety in her material. We get slight distinctions between her first entrance and the kind of sad vampire girl thing she eventually goes into for the remainder of the show. But she also sounds Fantastic. And has wonderful chemistry with LJ as Michael. Now let's talk about Shoshana Bean playing the role of Lucy. Very much expanded in the narrative from the version played by Diane Wiest in the movie. But facing many of the same challenges, Lucy is desperately trying to make this new life work for her and for her sons, about whom she is increasingly concerned. But she gets herself a job at the video store. She meets the owner. His name is Max. She goes on a sort of a not quite date, but also blatantly a date with him. They sing a duet together called Wild. In the second act, we get the full force of Shoshana Bean vocals, and then we get it a few more times. There is perhaps a valid criticism to be made of the number of different songs that Shoshana Bean gets to sing in this musical. At the same time, it's Shoshana Bean singing on a Broadway stage. And I have been critical recently of musicals that lack a sense of subplot. And even though we long to find out what's happening with Michael and David and the cool hot vampires, I do think there is a benefit to revisiting what's going on with Lucy and with Max, played by Paul Allen Alexander Nolan. And I don't necessarily think it's a case of too many songs rather than them basically articulating the same thing repeatedly. She does a great job with this material, though. She is truly, I think, in the best years of her career, she feels maternal and feisty, but also challenged and human. And she sounds obviously absolutely extraordinary. There's a moment when she is spinning around on a roundabout in a sort of abandoned playground with Paul Alexander Nolan, and the two of them are just belting out these notes, whipping around each other again, sort of invoking flight in a way. But it's a really great moment in the show. And let's talk about Paul as well, playing the role of Max. I love what Paul Alexander Nolan brings to every stage musical that he is in. I loved him in Water for Elephants. I loved him in the Heart. There is something so compelling about his presence on stage. He has such a force to him, which he puts behind him at the beginning of this, when he is coming across initially as this sort of unassuming, local, geeky, very buttoned up, sort of conservative video store guy. The full arc that he has in this show is so boldly and brilliantly played. And by the end, he is going to remind you of the full force of his creative powers, his vocal powers. He is extraordinary. I always enjoy watching him on stage. And it's great as well to see a coming together of two real powerhouses with him and Shoshana. Not everyone could be on the other side of that roundabout belting alongside her, but the two of them together, very good. Now, there is another real standout supporting performance that we have to talk about here, and that is Benjamin Pajak as Sam. He has some of the best winning comedy lines from the beginning of the show when he arrives with this wittily colorful personality. And he is dismayed to display discover that he has to share a room with his brother. And he's only going to let him put up one Rob Lowe poster. He has so many great lines, so many brilliant comedy moments heading into the second act. There is such a rewarding destination for this character. A friend of mine pointed out that one of the great lines he has during the final fight sequence seems to invoke Michael Arden's Tony Award speech from a couple of years ago. And it does feel like a really nice moment of queer representation. Representation. It remains only a queer coded character, even though, you know, it's pretty overtly so alongside the Frog Brothers. And this kind of speaks to a sense of queer community as well, because they are portrayed by the always brilliant Miguel Gill as Edgar and Jennifer Duka as Alan. And Alan is not an explicitly trans or non binary character, but again, it kind of invokes that idea. It feels as much like a signal of support for very young individuals coming to terms with a suggestion of their identity, with Edgar being this example of just bold, staunch allyship. I love the Frog Brothers so much for their determination and their insistence that they're going to be able to handle this. They are really fun characters for that reason, who take themselves just so, so seriously. And it becomes a great trio by the end. And of course, those are just the principal performances. There is an entire cast of people, very talented, making this story work on stage, throwing them off of this stage, flying around it. The logistics of this production have to be absolutely maddening. They appear as body doubles so that we can get extraordinary split second, sort of impossible reveals. There are so many different things happening. It's breathtaking to watch. And for them to perform all of this so slickly is very impressive. You would hope in and amongst the challenge of it all that they're also having a hell of a lot of fun. Which brings me to the end of my thoughts about the Lost Boys. I had a hell of a lot of fun watching this occasionally in spite of myself, like I said earlier in terms of the craft of musical theater writing and songwriting and lyrics. It's not the most thoughtful, it's not the most emotionally articulate. We still go back to to the outsiders esque quality occasionally of like emotionally frustrated young men who aren't able to articulate their emotions all that well. But what it is is pulse raising and compelling and vibrant. And I think there is a queer conversation happening beneath the surface which feels very much in tribute to the way that the film has been somewhat appropriated. I think it does have something to say, but it looks it's just a singularly dynamic watch. There are so few other shows that you could see anywhere in the world on stage that are going to be this staggering. So this is your sign to go and see the Lost Boys for yourselves on Broadway. And if you have already, let me know what you thought of it in the comments section down below. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening to my review. I hope you enjoyed if you did, make sure to subscribe right here on YouTube for more Broadway reviews coming very soon or follow me on podcast platforms. I've been Micky Jo and I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Micky Jo Theater oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a Stagey Day.
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