LJ Benet Beg Fans to ‘Stop Recording’ After ‘Scary’ Moment Regarding Safety Onstage at THE LOST BOYS

LJ Benet has asked fans to put their phones away when they come to Broadway’s Palace Theatre to see The Lost Boys. 

Benet, who plays Michael Emerson in the musical spectacle directed by Michael Arden, addressed the issues that come with illegally recording bootlegs at the theater. 

“Little quick PSA,” he said in a now-expired Instagram Story posted this week. “Can we please stop recording shows? That would be so great.” 

While Benet has admitted that he’s seen clips of the show on platforms like TikTok and Instagram — and has even “contributed to this by commenting on things that I see” — he said that it needs to stop. 

“Today something happened, and it was kind of scary,” he explained. “I jump off a bridge at a certain point in my show. When I do that, there’s some lights flashing that let me know what is going on — if it’s okay and if it’s safe.” 

“When I jumped off today, the minute I looked up, there was this bright flash out of nowhere, and it was someone’s phone going off, and it sent me into a quick panic attack, and I didn’t know if I was safe or not for a good five seconds,” he said. “Then I started the song.” 

The Lost Boys, which is based off the 1987 horror film of the same name about a family who moves to a town swarming with vampires, is filled with staging that has actors hanging upside down or jumping off parts of Dane Laffrey’s Tony Award-winning set. 

Benet explained that any distraction for the actors onstage could be dangerous. 

Illegally recording in the house “speaks to something bigger about theater etiquette in general,” he said, adding that he will no longer “comment on bootleg things anymore.”

“I can’t anymore because today was really scary,” he added. 

However, Benet acknowledged that the reason people may film could be part of “a bigger conversation about accessibility to theater in general and ticket prices.” 

Still, he said, “That’s a whole other conversation. I understand why people record because they want to make it accessible to people who can’t afford shows and who can’t afford tickets.” 

“It’s just a matter of a safety thing — at least for our show,” he said, adding that if “someone gets distracted because someone filmed — someone’s phone goes off — and it’s a flash… It’s a whole thing.” 

“Do us a solid,” he concluded. “Put ‘em away, and enjoy the show. We’ll all have one happy two-and-a-half hours.”

Benet is not the only actor to recently speak about the theater industry’s accessibility crisis. 

As BroadwayWorld previously reported, Schmigadoon! actress Isabelle McCalla said during a recent podcast appearance that she’s “quite frustrated with the business model that is Broadway right now.”   

“I don’t like how inaccessible Broadway is,” she added. “I think that there needs to be a concerted effort to have some sort of program where we can get lower-income families in to see Broadway shows because it should not be an art form that is only reserved for the rich and predominantly white.”   

Separately, Jeremy O. Harris recently said we “are in a crisis moment in the American Theater” and called on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to help the New York theater industry in a time when shows are struggling to survive.