Few Broadway musicals from the 2025-26 season could boast to having as much sheer spectacle as The Lost Boys. Based on the 1987 Joel Schumacher vampire favorite, the show turns the dial all the way to 100 with dozens of big set pieces and actors flying on wires across the stage. But all of that showmanship is in service of a compelling narrative about chosen family and acceptance.
Thanks to that dynamic combo, The Lost Boys joined Schmigadoon! as the most-nominated production at this year’s Tony Awards, scooping up 12 nods and taking home four statuettes, including Best Scenic Design and Best Lighting Design.
But the staging isn’t the only exciting part of the Michael Arden-directed show; it’s also the score written by the band The Rescues, which is overseeing an original Broadway cast album that’s set to take a bow on July 24. Two songs have already been released — “Secrets Come Out” sung by Tony-winning star Ali Louis Bourzgui, Maria Wirries, and LJ Bennet, and “Now Forever.” The album is dropping its third single on Friday, “Superpower,” performed by Benjamin Pajak, a relative newcomer to the Broadway world.
Gold Derby has your exclusive first look at Pajak in the studio as well as the full “Superpower” track. Watch both clips below.
In The Lost Boys, Pajak plays Sam, the youngest member of the Emerson family, who have moved to the fictional vampire-infested town of Santa Clara, Calif. As it happens, his older brother, Michael (Bennet) comes close to joining a vampire coven, while their mother Lucy (Tony winner Soshana Bean) also has a close encounter of the bloodsucking kind. That means it’s up to Sam and his new pals the Frog Brothers to dust some vamps before the Emersons join the ranks of the undead.
But Sam is also hiding a secret, one that’s not revealed until later in the show. While his queerness is hinted at throughout the show, he only fully embraces his identity and declares it as his superpower when he sings “Superpower” in Act 2.
Speaking with Gold Derby, Pajak calls “Superpower” a song “for everybody.”
“I would view [the song] as everyone deserves to belong,” the actor continues. “I think everyone deserves to be true to who they are, and I think everyone should accept that. There’s a lot of different lyrics in the song that are very easy for me to connect to. Being true to yourself and to who you are can be your superpower, and I think that’s why this song is so meaningful.”
Pajak also notes that “Superpower” has had a tangible impact on the audience members he’s met at the Palace Theatre’s stage door or through messages he’s received on social media. “I’ve had so many people come up to me, especially kids, saying that they’ve seen themselves represented on stage in that number and as an actor and as a performer, that’s the best compliment you could ever get,” the actor says. “I know that that’s all I ever wanted.”
“The story of someone’s queerness being what makes them special has kind of been told,” Rescues band member AG previously told Gold Derby about the process of writing “Superpower.” “We wanted to write an elevated story about how your superpower isn’t being gay, it’s because you’re different and being gay is part of being different. That was what was personally exciting to me as a gay person writing that song: Sam isn’t defined by being gay, it’s just part of who he is.”
