June 7 2026 was once a historical day for musical vampires. The level adaptation of The Misplaced Boys gained 4 Tony awards and the 3rd season of the TV display Interview with the Vampire, now retitled The Vampire Lestat, premiered on AMC in the United States (it arrived on BBC Two in the United Kingdom on July 28). Within the new season of the display, the French nobleman vampire Lestat is now a rockstar, and the collection options authentic songs and prolonged musical scenes.
Lestat (performed by way of Sam Reid) carries a legacy rooted in melodrama, opera, choice tune and musical theatre. However whilst musical vampires had been vastly widespread at the Nineteenth-century level (see Heinrich Marschner’s 1828 opera Der Vampyr), the fashionable musical vampire has been rather cursed.
From 2002-05, the musicals Dance of the Vampires, Dracula and Lestat all opened on New York’s Broadway – and all 3 had been epic flops.
Whilst the vampire musical has discovered luck the world over, it’s by no means had a second within the solar (or somewhat, out of the solar) on Broadway. However the place Lestat (2005) killed off the vampire musical, TV’s Lestat is resurrecting it. The collection has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes ranking, and The Misplaced Boys is considered one of the most up to date tickets on Broadway. Right here’s what they’re doing proper – and the place their predecessors went incorrect.
Dance of the Vampires
Tanz der Vampire (Dance of the Vampires, 1997) was once a damage hit in Vienna ahead of the display travelled to Broadway in 2002. The lavish authentic manufacturing featured a grand gothic fortress, exciting power-ballad tune by way of Jim Steinman and a brooding lead vampire, Rely von Krolock.
Mandy Gonzalez and Michael Crawford in Dance of the Vampires on Broadway.
It additionally concerned some problematic politics and a culturally explicit sense of humour. With those demanding situations, Broadway’s manufacturing workforce couldn’t agree on a course. Whilst some sought after to stay devoted to the unique, others sought after to attraction to American audiences with a “Mel Brooks-ish” comedy. With the latter coming to fruition, Austria’s grand romantic spectacle changed into natural slapstick.
To its credit score, the manufacturing did be offering some narrative enhancements, however the Broadway revamp misses one thing an important: a steadiness between the intense and the camp. Whilst the unique featured a number of humour, crucially, Krolock remained the “straight man”. When Broadway’s vampire changed into a clown, the tapestry fell aside. It misplaced the gothic surprise and emotional integrity that made Tanz an excellent musical.
The Misplaced Boys
As Lestat says in episode two of the brand new collection, “facts are irrelevant – feels are everything”. “Feels”, in the end, are the elemental concept of each vampires and musicals. Each are without a doubt identified for his or her pastime. On a extra base stage, each create visceral results thru their over the top spectacles. The “feeling” evoked by way of horror (and reside musicals) is rapid, an enjoy Linda Williams pertains to “body genres”.
Traditionally, over the top “feeling” and floor attraction had been refrained from by way of critics of the gothic for missing substance or ethical that means. However defenders of the gothic like Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick argue that floor impact and its related “feels” are precious in themselves. And simply as this concept applies to the gothic, it’s also true for musical theatre.
A trailer for The Misplaced Boys on Broadway.
The megamusical – a time period that describes large-scale presentations corresponding to Les Misérables and Cats – runs on spectacle. Mesmerising surroundings and technical innovation are paramount. The centrepiece of The Misplaced Boys is its flying vampires (one thing Dracula additionally had, even though the remainder of the display failed to check the whimsy).
The Misplaced Boys seems to be and appears like an 80s megamusical, conserving that grandeur that was once fatally reduce from Dance of the Vampires. Its Tony wins for efficiency and design, and losses for writing, counsel its center of attention on taste over substance – however somewhat than indicating failure, this appears to be the subgenre’s recipe for luck.
Dracula
Dracula is a a success musical in Europe and Asia, however like many vampires, it had a troublesome conception. The Broadway manufacturing suffered from static blockading, gratuitous feminine nudity, and, in keeping with critics, “soberly eschew[ed] any temptations to campy indulgence”.
Dracula himself confirmed no emotion. Actor Tom Hewitt, who had in the past starred in Rocky Horror, obviously had a camp vampire bursting to get out, however the manufacturing demanded constraint. It was once a musical made for the immediately male gaze.
A clip from Dracula on Broadway in 2004.
The display was once later revised in Switzerland, Austria, and South Korea. It steadily borrowed parts from the camp masterpiece Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), from Eiko Ishioka’s gown design to the long-lasting bleeding move scene.
Mina’s Seduction was once re-blocked right into a romantic scene the place Mina has extra regulate of the placement. The feminine nudity was once got rid of, however Dracula was once framed as a Twilight-esque heartthrob. The sexual dynamics had been remodeled: this was once now a Dracula for the feminine gaze. And because ladies are the principle demographic of musical theatre, and of widespread vampire media, this slow shift at once correlated with its slow luck.
The Vampire Lestat
If vampires are soulless, it stands to reason why that they’re no longer naturally musical. The vampires within the multi-Oscar-winning movie Sinners (2025) are drawn to blues tune as a result of it’s alive and human: the whole thing they’re no longer.
A trailer for Lestat on Broadway.
Some vampires would possibly no longer be capable to sing in any respect: Stoker’s Dracula praises the sound of the wolves (“what music they make!”) however doesn’t sing with them. In musicals, characters should sing honestly about their emotions. So how do soulless demons serve as on this international? To be a a success musical vampire, they should be a failed vampire.
By the way, Lestat’s albums are referred to as The Screw ups. Song has “opened up the batch oven” and his emotions are out of regulate. He’s an inexhaustible vessel of affection and ache: he cries, screams, and sings, expressing emotions he’s no longer meant to precise. Finally the long-lasting vampires generally tend to do, Lestat is prospering – and galvanizing others – within the cathartic communion of reside tune.
Sam Reid as Lestat within the new collection of The Vampire Lestat.
BBC / © 2026 AMC Networks Leisure LLC. All Rights Reserved. / Sophie Giraud
Broadway’s The Misplaced Boys additionally provides its vampires a reason why to sing by way of making the group a rock band. Then again, Broadway’s Lestat didn’t center of attention on his rockstar technology however somewhat condensed his lifestyles tale. It ignored the chance to discover the nature’s love of tune, to make use of the musical layout to discover Lestat’s identification. In The Vampire Lestat, tune is built-in into the display’s construction. It’s the very factor that unravels and divulges the vampire.
There’s a selected intersection the place the vampire’s attraction meets the musical’s, and whilst this intersection was once a thriller for Broadway manufacturers of the 2000s, it’s being nailed now. The curse is after all over – and now that the making a song vampires had been invited in, who is aware of what they’ll do subsequent.
