"It's its own thing," Ali Louis Bourzgui said last month — and that insistence landed him a nomination. In 2026 Bourzgui was named a nominee for best featured actor in a musical for his portrayal of David in The Lost Boys.
The nomination puts Bourzgui among a large slate of recognition for the show: The Lost Boys received 12 Tony nominations this year, tying it with the most‑nominated productions on Broadway in 2026. Bourzgui's credit is for a role the stage production casts as a villainous vampire, a part that has drawn attention both for its theatrical swagger and for how it reimagines the material for live audiences.
The Lost Boys began life as a 1987 vampire film; the Broadway version is an adaptation of that movie. That connection is the friction at the center of Bourzgui's public line: while the show clearly traces its lineage to the cult classic, he has explicitly declined to let comparisons flatten the stage piece. "It's its own thing," he said, a short, plain caveat that undercuts expectations that the musical will simply replay the film beat for beat.
Bourzgui's nomination also arrives with a local angle: before taking on the role of David he lived in Massachusetts, including Cambridge, Revere, East Boston and Pittsfield. Those New England ties have followed him into coverage of the season, and they give his nomination a clear throughline for audiences curious where Broadway faces come from.
The weight of the show’s 12 nominations matters to how voters will view individual performances. In a heavily nominated production, attention on ensembles and featured players can amplify a single actor’s visibility — an advantage for a featured‑actor contender like Bourzgui. The nomination recognizes his specific work within a larger creative package that critics, audiences and peers have noticed this season.
What the nomination does not settle is how closely the Broadway piece should be judged against the 1987 film. Directors, writers and actors have taken distinct approaches to adapting screen material for the stage; Bourzgui’s short public comment is a reminder that performers see the production as a separate work even when it borrows a well‑known name. That distinction is now part of how the show will be discussed as the season’s honors are finalized.
The practical next step for Bourzgui is simple and stark: he waits with the rest of the nominees for the votes that decide winners at the 2026 Tony Awards. The nomination itself, however, already marks a turning point — it signals that his turn as David has broken through from a role in a single production to a recognized Broadway performance, and it leaves open the larger question audiences and critics will now press: how far the stage The Lost Boys diverges from its film ancestor when theaters dim and the curtain rises.
