Find your way to The Lost Boys.
Why?
The Tony Award-winning show is a visual, carnivalesque romp through the mind and senses. A cacophony of heartfelt songs and dramatic staging. And relatable family dynamics, because we all have vampires in our lives. Personal struggles play out through absurdly bloodthirsty situations, plunged into the whirlpool of a lovable family haunted by demons on every level. So, it’s easy to overlook the more profound societal commentary that drives these dynamic characters, their decisions, and their behaviors.
The “Bad Dad” Effect On Our Collective Boardwalk
Broadway for Bros believes Broadway can teach guys unfamiliar with theater how this uniquely American art form can explain, inspire, and transform their lives through the power of storytelling. The Lost Boys is the quintessential bros-type show: it features thumping, stadium-level live rock music, a stage that maneuvers otherworldly scenes the way an aircraft carrier moves its F-18s, and characters spun into a downward trajectory by what we’re lovingly calling the “bad dad” effect.
The “bad dad” effect isn’t a uniquely American theme, but it’s a societal construct clearly taking a real-life toll on young American men. As economic prosperity—or even economic stability—becomes increasingly elusive, men are struggling to find their footing in a Darwinian, capitalistic society that measures their worth by economic success, physical height, and social status. With an economy rigged to enrich the elite, a job market obsessed with half-true AI narratives, and a soul-crushing housing market, everyone feels the hurt. But for men whom our culture expects to provide for their families—housing, childcare, food, education, all increasingly unaffordable—life feels more desperate, insidious, and unmanageable than ever. Add the “bad dad” effect to this mix, and you’ve got young men susceptible to the advances of insidious (vampire) cults offering a sense of agency, belonging, and power.
The vampires in The Lost Boys can be read as a metaphor for the cults terrorizing our collective American boardwalk, but the dynamics driving these wounded characters are very real and prevalent in our society today. No one should be surprised. These forces destroying the fabric of our culture have been here for decades, perhaps since the very founding of our nation. Broadway has always been there to showcase how the destructive tendencies of Americans push us forward and backward, as the forces of greed, bigotry, and willful ignorance battle against equitable economic access, empathy, and a desire to protect the weak and uplift our most vulnerable souls.
A Tony-Winning Pedigree
Beyond its thematic weight, The Lost Boys arrives with the receipts to back it up. At the 2026 Tony Awards, the show led the entire field with twelve nominations, including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Score, and walked away with four wins on the night—making it one of the most decorated new musicals of the season. For someone like me, who saw the movie when it first came out in 1987 (yes, I’m old) and then scores of times since then, to see this story on the Broadway stage is pretty damn cool.
Much of that recognition this Broadway interpretation received centered on the show’s physical world: scenic designer Dane Laffrey won for his multilevel set, a feat made even more impressive by the fact that his team built a three-story structure inside another building recently lifted above Times Square. Laffrey shared the win with lighting designer Jen Schriever and director Michael Arden, who took home his own Tony for lighting design after already winning for direction the year prior—proof that the same guys who make this show feel like a rock concert also know how to engineer it like one.
The performances matched the production’s ambition. Shoshana Bean won Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Lucy, the mother trying to hold her family together—her first Tony after three career nominations. Across from her, Ali Louis Bourzgui took Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his magnetic, unsettling turn as David, the vampire gang’s ringleader, marking his first-ever Tony nomination and win.
Bourzgui used his platform to talk about vampires as a stand-in for anyone who’s traded their humanity for a false sense of power—billionaires, colonizers, and the kind of manipulative figures at the center of this piece’s “bad dad” thesis. These aren’t actors coasting on spectacle. They’re doing the emotional heavy lifting that makes the show’s commentary land.
It doesn’t hurt that all of this unfolds inside one of Broadway’s most storied rooms. The Palace Theatre opened in 1913 as the country’s premier vaudeville house, the stage every performer dreamed of playing, hosting legends like Harry Houdini, Ethel Merman, and Judy Garland. After decades as a movie house, the Nederlander Organization restored it to a legitimate Broadway theater in 1966.
Most recently, as part of the $2 billion TSX Broadway redevelopment (watch the video, it’s crazy impressive) the entire landmarked auditorium was physically lifted 30 feet in the air to make room for retail space below, with the renovation wrapping in 2024. A century-old room, rebuilt and raised off its foundation, now houses a musical about people trying to find solid ground. That’s not a bad metaphor for the whole night out.
Recommend a Dude See The Lost Boys Before the Vampires Get Him
If you have a loved one who is a guy—or just someone you, meh, like—who has been putting off Broadway because it sounds like a night of glitzy jazz hands and emotional show tunes about hurt feelings, The Lost Boys is your way in. Tell them this is a rock concert with a body count and something real to say about what it’s like to be a guy trying to keep his head above water right now. The vampires aren’t just there to look cool (though they do). They’re a mirror for every cult, con artist, and false promise of power that preys on men who feel like the system’s rigged against them.
And it works, because the show never lets the spectacle outrun the substance. Seriously, that’s why it walked away from the Tonys with four wins out of twelve nominations, including recognition for the people building the world (Laffrey, Schriever, Arden) and the ones living in it (Bean, Bourzgui). Add in the fact that you’re watching it inside a century-old theater that was quite literally lifted 30 feet off the ground to make room for the future, and you’ve got a night out that’s bigger than the ticket price. Bring a friend who thinks theater isn’t for him. This is the show that changes his mind.
Fun Quiz: What other “Bad Dad” shows have you seen?
Here’s our list:
The Outsiders – Bad Dads on both sides of this iconic rivalry.
Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) – Bad Dad ignores a great son.
Ragtime – Some Good Dads but also some racist Bad Dads.
The Balusters – Another racist Bad Dad (see a theme here?), but this one is trapped in a suburban past.
Bug – Who provided the sperm that created any of these characters should be in jail.
Little Bear Ridge Road – Absent Bad Dad isn’t a centerpiece but his absence is always there.
Punch – Bad Dad in England creates a pattern with a Bad Kid… or can he change?
Kyoto – Bad Dad who helped ruin planet earth for greed and power.
Murdoch: The Final Interview – Based on perhaps the worst Bad Dad to ever exist.
See you under the marquee. – Jim Thompson