To say that the Tony-winning Broadway collaborators Michael Arden and Dane Laffrey have been working together their whole lives is an exaggeration, but not much of one.
Arden, a director who began his career as an actor, and Laffrey, a set designer, are best known these days for their work on head-turning Broadway productions with a distinct visual flair, from Once on This Island to Maybe Happy Ending to the upcoming musical The Lost Boys. But long before they made it to the Tony Awards, the pair met as teenagers in Michigan.
There it quickly became clear that these two classmates (and, eventually, senior-year roommates) shared a clear-cut philosophy of theatricality and design — and a drive to work and rework an idea until they got it right.
“Michael and I do musicals that don’t really look like musicals,” Laffrey says when asked to put that philosophy into words. “We don’t necessarily trade in that old-fashioned theatrical design with lots of flats and planes. We’re always trying to elevate or unlock the material to realize something that’s theatrically satisfying.”
As one early example, Arden points to a student production of She Loves Me in which Arden starred with Laffrey as stage manager. “We were just really unsatisfied with the props,” the director recalls with a laugh. “They weren’t telling the story, so we broke into the theater and spent all night making prop perfume bottles for the show. Someone had to do it!”
It was the beginning of a rich creative bond that has only deepened over a string of productions, including Spring Awakening, A Christmas Carol, Parade, and Maybe Happy Ending. Now they’re bringing their unique theatrical sensibility to the buzzy new musical The Lost Boys.
Based on the 1987 cult-classic Warner Bros. film directed by Joel Shumacher, The Lost Boys follows two teenagers who move to a coastal California town and fall in with a gang of punk vampires. With a score by The Rescues, the indie-pop band whose songs have provided the soundtrack for hit TV series including Grey’s Anatomy, The Lost Boys puts an 80s-thriller spin on a universal story of adolescence, belonging, and found family.
Like all of Arden and Laffrey’s previous collaborations, The Lost Boys was destined to hit the stage with high-impact visuals. “I’m of the belief that you do go to see a play,” Arden says. “The visual elements are so much a part of the lasting effect of a show.”
The production design for The Lost Boys is a study in contrasts: California sun against horror-movie shadows, 80s pastels against in-your-face punk, the warmth of a family home against the seamy thrill of a small-town boardwalk. It’s a space that lets the story’s most intimate emotions shine — and then transforms to ratchet up the suspense that’ll keep Broadway audiences on the edge of their seats.
As the new musical moved toward production, Arden and Laffrey settled on a set design — and then, ultimately, scrapped it. “It was like those She Loves Me props,” Laffrey recalls. “It just wasn’t right.”
So the duo took a do-over. “I think we finally found the heart of the design by making it messier, more sculptural, less symmetrical,” Arden explains.
“It’s more Escher-esque and a little more unsettling,” Laffrey agrees.
In crafting their unique onstage worlds, the pair works closely with lighting and costume designers to craft a coherent vision. In this case, Arden is working unusually closely with lighting designer Jen Schriever: He’s co-designing the lights with her.
Schriever previously worked with Arden and Laffrey on the 2024 premiere of the new musical adaptation of The Preacher’s Wife. “It’s kind of like how twins can finish each other’s sentences,” she says of collaborating with the lifelong friends. “Michael has such a strong visual sense, and they both have these multi-hyphenate brains in terms of thinking about space and mood and scale.”
According to costume designer Ryan Park, who is working with the pair on The Lost Boys, Arden and Laffrey excel in assembling teams with shared creative values. “We all have the same philosophy of making theater, of visual impact and storytelling and character,” he says. “It’s about coming up with creative, exciting solutions that really serve the story and the music.”
Over the years, the two have created shows that range from the found-object simplicity of Once on This Island to the high-tech spectacle of Maybe Happy Ending and the opulence-with-a-twist of Queen of Versailles.
Arden and Laffrey say audiences can expect to be wowed by the onstage world that they and their collaborators have dreamed up for The Lost Boys, which aims to use the grand scale of the recently renovated Palace Theatre to its advantage.
“It’s going to feel like a big, proper, thrilling Broadway musical,” Arden promises.
Watch the new trailer for The Lost Boys here.
