You can’t keep a good vampire down. Or five of them for that matter.
Nearly four decades after Joel Schumacher‘s The Lost Boys entranced the 1987 multiplex crowd, the bloodsucker yarn gets the Broadway treatment. Gold Derby is exclusively unveiling the official character posters from the upcoming musical — the same posters you’ll see plastered all over the Palace Theater marquee in Times Square ahead of the show’s spring opening. (Previews begin March 27, with opening night scheduled for April 26.)
And hopes are high among the creative team — which includes producers James Carpinello, Marcus Chait and Patrick Wilson and director Michael Arden — that the Sinners effect could propel these Lost Boys all the way to the Tony Awards in June.
These character posters come in two bloody great flavors. One features the Lost Boys themselves, the Santa Carla, Calif. vamp pack led by the eternally cool David, played by Kiefer Sutherland in the original film and But Louis Bourggui on stage. He’s joined by fellow immortals Marko (Brian Flores), Dwayne (Sean Grandillo), Paul (Dean Maupin) and Star (Maria Wirriesplaying a role originated onscreen by Jami Gertz). “Become one of us” reads their enticing invitation.
Another poster introduces us to the new-in-town Emerson family, including single mom Lucy (Shoshana Beantaking over from Dianne Wiest) and her teen sons, Michael and Sam (LJ Benet and Benjamin Taxstepping in for Jason Patric and the late Corey Haimrespectively). “Get ready for the ride of your life,” teases (or, if you prefer, warns) the trio. And Michael is certainly in for the ride of his life after he finds himself falling under the spell of Star… and David.
In this version of events, the Lost Boys are a local Santa Carla band performing anthems written by the acclaimed rockers The Rescues. “The music in the show is timeless,” Benet tells Gold Derby. “The Rescues have created an interpretation of what the film encapsulated so well, which was the experience of these characters looking [for a fresh start]. And now we get inside what they’re actually thinking with these songs.”
“We want to take little bits and pieces from the film to honor what it is,” adds Bourzgui. “For me, I really focused on preserving Kiefer’s voice as David. And even my costume references what that character looked like with that great blond mullet. But I’m also adding this cold, hard stare when I’m performing as part of the band as David locks into people. I feel like that’s part of being in a vampire rock band: at a certain point, you get bored enough that your thirsty for anything that might provide a hint of emotion.”
For the record, the Broadway cast haven’t met their cinematic counterparts yet. Bean confesses that she’s been too nervous to reach out to Wiest. “I mean, she’s royalty!” laughs the Tony-nominated star. “What would I even say? Like, ‘Hi, Dianne, we should do lunch?’ I wouldn’t even think of doing that!”
Bean does have one connection to the film’s cast, though; she’s good friends with actor-director Alex Winterwho played Marko back in ’87. “I was in Bill and Ted Face the Music with Alex, and he DM’d me recently to say, “Hey, congrats on the show,'” the actress says. “I was like, ‘You’d better be there on opening night!'”
Seeing these Lost Boys posters all over New York should remind Winter — as well as Sutherland and Wiest — to show up on April 26. Maybe they’ll even bring their saxophones.
