Fourth Bite, Shoshana Bean's Lost Boys Outlasts Every Vampire Musical

The Lost Boys, the Tony-winning musical with Shoshana Bean at the Palace Theatre, is now the longest-running vampire musical in Broadway history, with more than 200 performances, Playbill reported on Friday, October 23.

It got there eight days before Halloween. On Broadway, that counts as good timing.

The record is less crowded than it sounds. Playbill's look back counts three earlier vampire musicals, and all three closed fast. Playbill's Margaret Hall puts it plainly.

"Historically, vampire musicals have not fared well on the Main Stem."

How Short Were the Others?

Very short. Here is the record as Playbill lays it out.

Dance of the Vampires, with a Jim Steinman score and Michael Crawford as the count, played the Minskoff Theatre for 61 previews and 56 regular performances and closed on January 25, 2003. Playbill puts its loss at about $12 million, one of the largest in Broadway history.

Dracula, the Musical, with music by Frank Wildhorn and Kelli O'Hara and Melissa Errico in the company, opened in August 2004 and closed within five months, losing about $7.5 million.

Lestat, with music by Elton John and lyrics by Bernie Taupin, barely lasted a month. It closed on May 28, 2006. Its theater was the Palace, the same house The Lost Boys now fills.

The Record, by Our Count

This is Suite 646's own arithmetic from Playbill's figures.

The Lost Boys began performances on Friday, March 27, 2026. By October 23 it had been running for 210 days, exactly 30 weeks, with 30 previews and more than 200 regular performances. That is more than three and a half times the 56 regular performances of Dance of the Vampires, the earlier show with a published count.

The two earlier flops with reported losses, Dance of the Vampires and Dracula, lost a combined $19.5 million or so between them. Lestat's run at the Palace ended twenty years ago last May. Playbill's verdict on the newcomer is that the fourth time was the charm.

Who Is in It?

A cast of Tony winners and newcomers. Bean won the Tony for featured actress in a musical, and Ali Louis Bourzgui also won for his performance, according to BroadwayWorld, which counts four Tony wins from 12 nominations. The other two went to set designer Dane Laffrey and to lighting designers Michael Arden and Jen Schriever. Arden also directs.

The story follows Michael, who moves to Santa Carla, California, with his brother Sam and their mother Lucy, and falls in with a rock band whose leader, David, has a dark secret. The score is by The Rescues. The show is inspired by the 1987 film.

Arden has a second show running this fall. He directs the Broadway revival of A Few Good Men at Lincoln Center, which we covered when it began previews.

Who Came to See It?

Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell did. BroadwayWorld published Bruce Glikas's photos on October 22 of the couple meeting the cast after the curtain, including Bourzgui, LJ Benet and Maria Wirries. Patrick Wilson, a producer of the show and a friend of the couple, posed with them.

The same week brought a less festive moment. Benet, who plays Michael Emerson, posted an Instagram Story about a bright camera flash from the audience as he jumped from a bridge on the set, BroadwayWorld reports. He said it caused a brief panic attack.

"Can we please stop recording shows? That would be so great."

He ended with a simpler request. "Put 'em away, and enjoy the show," he said.

The set explains why. Laffrey's design uses industrial scaffolding to move a two-story house, a neon boardwalk and a vampire lair through more than a dozen changes, Broadway.com reports. Actors hang upside down and jump from it.

What to Know Before You Go

The Palace Theatre is on Broadway in Times Square. BroadwayWorld lists tickets from $59 through Ticketmaster. A North American tour is set to open at Playhouse Square in Cleveland in spring 2028, and an original Broadway cast recording is on the way.

For more Halloween week fare, The Rocky Horror Show is still doing the time warp at Studio 54, as we noted when Rosie O'Donnell joined the cast.

Lestat lasted a month in this building. The Lost Boys has been at the Palace for seven, and the vampires are still awake.