Patrick Wilson, James Carpinello and Marcus Chait’s Lost Boys Musical Is Ready to Fly

The Lost Boys, A New Musical is a fresh take on the 1987 cult-classic film that producers James Carpinello, Marcus Chait and Patrick Wilson are dying for audiences to sink their teeth into. The trio sat down with Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek at The Skylark to talk about their journeys as first-time theater producers and why The Lost Boys translates perfectly to the musical medium.

Carpinello, Chait and Wilson all made their respective Broadway debuts in the late ‘90s, but their connection started much earlier at Carnegie Mellon University. “We had these things called sleeping bag weekends, where a college senior can come hang out with a sophomore,” Wilson explains. “When I showed up for my sleeping bag weekend,” Chait says, “I went to the Dean's office, and they were like, 'I have somebody you should hang out with. I think you guys will get along.' And that was Patrick.” It was because of that weekend that Chait made the decision to attend CMU.

On Chait’s first day of college, he met Carpinello. “We're all sitting in this huge theater, and it's the big speech where they scare the freshmen," Chait recalls. "They're like, 'Look to your left, look to your right. One of these guys won't be here in four years when you graduate.' And you're like, 'Oh, God.' And about five minutes late into the meeting, the back doors open and in comes this buff, tan guy wearing a tank top, cut-off jean shorts and work boots. And I was like, ‘Who is this guy? I'm going to hate this dude.’ He ended up becoming one of my best friends. That's kind of the origin story. And then once we graduated and we all started working as actors, we all had these different itches to produce.”

The production bug first bit Chait during his performance as Wes the 2003 Broadway production of Urban Cowboy, which closed after 60 performances. “During that time, I remember thinking, it's a shame this show isn't working—but the idea of doing a musical based on existing IP was interesting. And at that time, everybody wasn't doing it,” he says, “I just thought, 'Why isn't this one working? What is a movie that could work?'” Chait had the idea to turn The Lost Boys into a musical, and first tried to get the rights from Warner Brothers more than two decades ago. After a swift rejection, he continued to work on it until finally deciding to move on. Then the project presented itself anew in 2020. “The movie was on TV a ton during COVID. I called these guys and I said, ‘You remember, we had this idea?’ Patrick, fortunately, had developed a really great relationship with Warner Brothers over the years. We went and got a meeting and we pitched our take on how we would bring this thing to the stage.”

Unbeknownst to the team at the time, The Lost Boys was one of the most requested titles in the Warner Brothers library. “They were super protective of it,” Chait shares. “Fortunately, they responded to our pitch, and we were off to the races.” It wasn’t just that The Lost Boys "defined cool" for the three producers’ generation. “The biggest thing that we always talk about is we could see where this movie sang,” says Chait. “It was living in such a heightened reality that it would make sense that people would break into song, which is obviously the hardest thing when you're making a musical, to justify that.” 

Wilson worked with the film's director, Joel Schumacher, on 2004's The Phantom of the Opera film, and while he says the Lost Boys musical never came up in conversation before Schumacher passed in 2020, the two were very close. "Anybody that's in Joel's universe, it feels pretty special," he says. When Chait first presented the idea, Wilson made a concerted effort to look at it objectively. "I wanted Joel to be happy, I really did." Eventually, he agreed that Schumacher had created a world that was ripe for exploration and expansion through music. "What Joel did in really making it about youth, about life, about brotherhood, about your tribe, it just screamed musical theater. All of us as creatives, it’s the reason we got into the business, to find somebody that was like us. I feel like he would have loved it."

Wilson’s background in horror also provided great insight for the team, who crowned him the “tension police.” The Conjuring and Insidious franchise star understands the importance of taking risks. “We live at a heightened level, just like musical theater. And once you get on board with that, it's so freeing. The highs are high, the lows are low. We always talk about stakes—pun intended. It's a vampire joke.”

So, with a great idea and a shared belief that the film would work as a musical, the three teamed up to produce the show. The challenge, however, was that none of them had produced theater before. “When you're observing from the outside and you're running from a marketing meeting to a publicity meeting to look at costumes to determine whether there should be punctuation on a poster or no punctuation on a poster, you're seeing everything. It's a mix of being super busy, super anxious and super anticipatory and excited about what's coming,” Carpinello says.

Chait echoes this sentiment, adding, “I think the biggest thing for us is that we knew how many decisions we'd be making, and we knew how important those decisions would be, but we didn't know they'd be coming in such rapid fire," Chait continues. "As this countdown is getting closer and closer to opening night, the number of things coming at us—you can't anticipate that until you're actually in the fire, and we are in it right now. But it's awesome.”

Throughout the hectic process, all three are grateful to have each other, and are still taking time to learn. Chait describes their responsibility as producers to "make it undeniably good in every department, strive for excellence." Luckily, they are surrounded by individuals also working at their very best to help achieve this vision. “Michael Arden had never seen the film, so he only looked at it with fresh eyes,” Wilson points out. Arden also sold the producers on The Rescues, the California-based indie band who wrote the new music and lyrics. "It's been a remarkable experience working with the three of them,” Chait says.

While the music is the key ingredient in turning The Lost Boys film into The Lost Boys musical, the hopes is not only to leave audiences humming the melodies post-show, but feeling an emotional connection to the piece. "I hope that people feel the way we do when we watch the show," says Chait. "People are going to love the music, but I think for people to have that feeling when we watch it of, this is actually a really heartfelt story, it's not some actiony vampire thing. I think if we can really move some people, that would make this whole thing worthwhile.”

The story at the heart of The Lost Boys is certainly moving. “It's about family, the human condition. It's about finding your people,” says Carpinello. “We're obviously in a time where things are very complicated and it's hard to sort of just move through your day. I think you'll leave the theater feeling a sense of hope. If we can accomplish that, if people can walk out with the desire to be better and the desire to also be grateful for everything we do have on a daily basis? I know that sounds heavy, but I really hope that that happens.”

Watch the full interview below!

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