Life With Briana: August 2026

August 1, 2026

My Surprise Realization ~ The Connection Of "The Phantom Of The Opera" Musical To "The Lost Boys" Musical

I made a recent surprise realization.

I follow a couple of social media accounts for "The Lost Boys" Musical and on one account, there was a post that mentioned a performer named Ben Crawford. I wasn't sure who Ben Crawford was, so I googled his name under images. An image that I posted on my blog back in 2019 popped up. I had blogged about me, Doug and Bri seeing The Phantom Of The Opera on Broadway. I recognized the picture immediately. In that blog post, I said that the Phantom's voice made me cry. That is how good he was and how much his voice moved me. For some reason, his name didn't stay with me (but it should have - shame on me).

I came to the realization that the Phantom we saw in 2019 was Ben Crawford and he is now in The Lost Boys.

He plays the main character Michael's abusive father (who is a hallucination) and is also in the ensemble. He is also the understudy for the character Max. I had NO idea that was him. He obviously wore a mask in Phantom, so I didn't really know what he looked like.

Our attendance at that "Phantom of the Opera" performance put the Broadway bug into my sweet girl. She loved that show. She loves musicals but especially musicals on Broadway.

I wish I had known beforehand that we were seeing "our" Phantom again.

Phantom Ben Crawford...

His voice is beautiful...

He was Phantom for 5 years - starting before the pandemic and then coming back after it.

And now, he is in "The Lost Boys"...

This is a video of the scene "The Secret Comes Out" which happens right before the intermission. It is when both Sam and Michael start to realize that Michael is now a vampire after drinking vampire blood (half-vampire) and Michael hallucinates his abusive father - played by Ben Crawford (this video was obviously secretly recorded by someone, so the quality isn't the best, but it shows the whole scene). This is one of my favorite scenes from the show...

Ben Crawford has one song that he is featured in on the LB soundtrack and it is "You Belong To Me (Reprise)". He sounds amazing on it.

As soon as I figured this all out, I told Briana. It was very exciting putting two and two together.

Both shows - Phantom and Lost Boys are in my top 3 favorite musicals (Hamilton is top 3 as well).

Wish I had known this earlier, but I'm happy to know it now!

Here is a list of musicals that we have seen over the years (the ones I have blogged about)...

I had seen a number of musicals before Briana came into my life, as my parents were musical fans as well as Doug. I saw national tours of Phantom, Fiddler On The Roof, Wicked, Cats, The Lion King, Spamalot and Beauty And The Beast - before becoming a mom. And as a child with my parents, I saw Peter Pan (with Sandy Duncan) and Sophisticated Ladies (which I did not enjoy because I was just too young to get it). So to have a daughter who has a huge appreciation for musicals is a big win for our whole family!