Shoshana Bean goes 'Wild' singing 'The Lost Boys' showstopper - Exclusive

Patrick Ryan, USA TODAYTue, May 26, 2026 at 12:01 PM UTC

0

NEW YORK — Few people can belt a showtune quite like Shoshana Bean.

Over her nearly 25-year career on Broadway, the powerhouse vocalist has put her inimitable spin on many of your favorite songs from “Wicked,” “Hairspray,” “Waitress” and “Hair.”

Now, she gets a signature number of her own in “The Lost Boys,” the 12-time Tony-nominated musical based on the 1987 vampire horror comedy. Bean is the show’s emotional anchor as Lucy, the recently divorced mom of teenage sons Michael (LJ Benet) and Sam (Benjamin Pajak), who starts a new life in a new town after leaving an abusive relationship.

In her rousing Act 2 anthem “Wild,” which is premiering exclusively on usatoday.com, Lucy and her burgeoning love interest, Max (Paul Alexander Nolan), reflect on their carefree younger years when the world was full of possibility. For Bean, 48, it’s “easy” to relate to the song.

Single mom Lucy (Shoshana Bean) reflects on the past in "The Lost Boys" musical on Broadway.

In real life, "I'm not a mother reclaiming my lost independence," Bean says. "But at the stage I am in life, there's pieces of my own ferocity ‒ of my own wild abandon, of my own fearlessness ‒ that life just slowly chips away. You get to be my age, and you look back like, ‘Where did she go?’ It’s been really fun to use that song as a vessel every night for that reclamation.”

Lucy is the third mother in a row that Bean has played on Broadway after 2024’s “Hell’s Kitchen” and 2022’s “Mr. Saturday Night,” all three of which have earned her Tony Awards nominations for best featured actress in a musical.

Advertisement

As much as she loves these characters, “I’m also like, ‘Is this all that there is for women my age? Is this where they see us, and what they’ll allow us to do and be?’” Bean says. “That's what the song is for me: What are the rules for women? Are we allowed to hold onto our wild?”

More: How movies, pizza (and cults) brought 'Two Strangers' together

"The Lost Boys" stars LJ Benet, left, and Shoshana Bean pose for a portrait in New York on May 21.

The Tony Awards will air live from New York’s Radio City Music Hall on June 7 (8 ET/5 PT on CBS and streaming on Paramount+). Bean is nominated alongside a stacked group of women in her category including “Ragtime” breakthrough Nichelle Lewis, “Chess” standout Hannah Cruz, and “Saturday Night Live” favorites Ana Gasteyer (“Schmigadoon!”) and Rachel Dratch (“The Rocky Horror Show”).

“The Lost Boys” is not only Bean’s third Tony nom in five years, but it also feels “the most special” of them all.

“This whole process has been so fun and so rich and so collaborative” Bean says. “From soup to nuts, the whole thing has been so beautiful, so the nomination just feels like the cherry on top of a very well-made cake.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Shoshana Bean sings 'The Lost Boys' anthem 'Wild' - Exclusive

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”