First-Time Producers Marcus Chait, Patrick Wilson, and James Carpinello Bring Their Lost Boys to Broadway

For Marcus Chait, Patrick Wilson, and James Carpinello, producing a Broadway show is a first.

They each have deep roots in front of the footlights as actors, but now they’re coming together behind the scenes to turn the 1987 film The Lost Boys into a stage musical. Combining nostalgia, theatrical freshness, and a deep respect for the original property, this trio is honoring the movie’s legacy while deepening the piece in a new medium.

It’s a labor of love for all involved, and that commitment is not lost on any of them.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Out of the three of you, whose idea was a musical version of The Lost Boys?
Marcus Chait: I had an idea to do this about 25 years ago, when I was a young actor on Broadway. I thought it would be a cool idea to turn this into a musical. I went after it at the time and found out it was one of Warner Brothers’ most requested titles in their library, so they weren’t going to give it to some young actor they’d never heard of before.

During Covid, the film was on TV again, and I remember thinking, “This is still a good idea.” It’s probably a better idea now because it’s a nostalgia piece. We grew up on the film, and now we’re the theater-going audience. I called these two guys saying, “Why don’t we go after this?” Fortunately, Patrick had done a bunch of movies for Warner Brothers, so I knew we could at least get a meeting. Fortunately, they responded to our pitch, and we were off to the races.

Patrick Wilson: I also had a relationship with Joel Schumacher [who directed the film]. All these things, as much as we loved the property, we had to sit back as producers and go, “Does this hold up?” Are the flaws of the movie—because every movie has a flaw—can we see our way around it, and how can we make it better? If it’s not worth making better, then why do it? What will the stage bring to it?

When we re-looked at the movie, something that didn’t resonate to us as kids—because we were just looking at all the cool guys and Kiefer Sutherland—was that it’s a single mom taking her two kids to California looking for a fresh start. It’s a coming-of-age story of two very different brothers. So that was the way in. And then we needed to find a band that supported the feeling we wanted for the show, and, of course, the right director.

How did you choose this particular team of artists, like Michael Arden to direct, and Chris Hoch and David Hornsby as book writers?
James Carpinello: Patrick’s been at CAA for years, and Joe Machota, who is the most connected of CAA agents to the theater world—and actually started as an actor at the same time we were coming up—was the one we asked, because we wanted to be where theater was going. We were looking at directors, and Joe said it was Michael Arden. I’d known Michael for years socially, but I’d never worked with him. He came up in the business as an actor as well, and he had already done Spring Awakening and Once on This Island, but it was really his A Christmas Carol with Jefferson Mays and his design partner, Dane Laffrey, that made us realize he was the person we wanted to guide the ship.

Marcus: And we—the three of us—and Chris and David all went to college together. They were a year or two behind us in school. We were working with another writer at the time, and Chris was reading it as a friend, giving me feedback. That writer ended up getting a movie and had to leave, so when we were looking for new writers, Chris and David wrote 50 pages on spec, and it was fantastic. We were like, “Are we honestly gonna hire our buddies from college?” We hired our buddies from college, and they’ve done a phenomenal job of honoring the film while creating something unique at the same time.

I didn’t know The Rescues, but Michael Arden knew them, and that’s how they got hired, right?
Patrick:  Michael really led us to them; we didn’t know them. As producers, you have an idea for a show but you don’t have everything filled in because you want the director to have their vision. We knew the tone and we knew the sound, but we didn’t know any specifics. When we did figure out the band, it all clicked. It was the same with Hoch and Hornsby, too. That’s been the most fun, putting together this eclectic group of people that otherwise would not be working together and seeing what they come up with.

Patrick, having worked with Joel Schumacher on Phantom and knowing him as you did, were you able to go to him for his thoughts on the material during the development process?
Patrick: He had already passed away by that point, so we never spoke about the show, but his legacy runs deep. I want to honor him, and that was important to me, and I think Warner Brothers knew that too. My relationship with Joel, I think, gave them confidence. They knew that we were looking out for the best interests of the property. You don’t want to change something for the sake of change, but a Broadway show—a theater piece—can make material much stronger. I know Joel’s taste pretty well, and I feel like he would really love this. It’s a shame he can’t see it.

Marcus: Kiefer Sutherland came to our last workshop, and I spent the whole time watching him instead of watching the show, because I was so nervous about what the OG David was gonna think. Afterwards, I went up to him and I said, “What did you think of the show?” And he said, “I think if Joel was with me today, he would have put his arm around me and said, ‘Kiefer, I wish we had done it like this.'” Knowing we had that stamp of approval from him was a special moment in the life of the show. It was the greatest compliment ever.