Photo: Matthew Smedal
New York, NY (April 23, 2026)—Back in 1987, audiences packed movie theaters to see The Lost Boys, a hit thriller that followed two brothers and their mom battling evil teenaged vampires in a coastal California town. Nearly 40 years, those vampires have returned to roost in New York: The Lost Boys is now a Broadway musical opening this weekend. Earlier this week, the show picked up 11 Outer Critics Circle Award nominations and four Drama League nominations—and that’s music to Ethan Popp’s ears.
As the show’s music supervisor, orchestrator and arranger, Popp has been involved in the production since 2023. While the show’s 28 original songs were written by L.A. rock trio The Rescues, it was Popp who translated their tunes into the theatrical realm—something that he has extensive experience with, having often worked on Broadway shows that draw music from elsewhere, including Back to the Future, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, School of Rock, Rock of Ages, Motown: The Musical and more.
“My work on this show has centered on developing its musical and orchestral language from The Rescues’ incredible original demos into a fully realized theatrical score for Broadway,” Popp said. “It isn’t just about instrumentation; it’s about designing how the live players and our playback architecture and spatial perspective work together to immerse the audience in our storytelling.”
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The Rescues wrote upwards of 50 songs during the show’s development as the entire production team worked to find the show’s emotional core and atmosphere.
“My work was about bringing the music’s emotionality to a Broadway context, expanding—and sometimes condensing—it for a 15-piece orchestra, figuring out what was going to be played live, what was going to be designated for playback and how immersive audio design was going to play into that orchestration,” said Popp.
That process required in-depth collaboration with sound designer Adam Fisher. “We first worked together on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s School of Rock 10 years ago, and he’s one of the best in the business,” said Popp.
The two focused on the creative possibilities of 7.1 immersive sound. “On a show like The Lost Boys, orchestration and sound can’t really exist in separate silos,” said Popp. “We’ve been thinking about how the music lives in the room—how the audience experiences it, spatially, emotionally and dramatically—and that’s where the collaboration with Adam and his team becomes so exciting. The score is being experienced as atmosphere and narrative energy, so the immersive environment becomes an integral part of the orchestration; it determines how the audience lives inside of the score.”
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Popp uses the show’s immersive audio technology as another arranging tool to help his music take the audience on an emotional journey. “In practical terms for me, that means being very intentional about how playback elements—reverbs, delays, synthesized textures, vocal atmospheres and traditional material—occupy the room,” Popp added. “Some elements want to feel frontal and immediate because they’re carrying narrative focus; others can widen that emotional space or create unease. When that’s done well, the audience isn’t just hearing the orchestration; they’re experiencing it around them, even just from an unconscious point of view, and that makes the storytelling more immersive.”