A Dynamic Duo

Stephen King, the legendary best-selling author, has decided to jump from the fiction to the stage, and has penned a script for a Broadway musical. Who is his musical counterpart? John Mellencamp.

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Stephen King, the legendary best-selling author, has decided to jump from the fiction to the stage, and has penned a script for a Broadway musical. Who is his musical counterpart? John Mellencamp.

The project, titled “Ghost Brothers of the Darkland Country,” was announced on Tuesday, and will open in April 2009 in Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre, with the hope of preparing it for a run on Broadway.

According to Alliance artistic director, Susan Booth, the idea hatched from a story Mellencamp heard years ago in his hometown of Seymour, Ind. The project is described as “a sultry Southern gothic mystery with a blues-tinged, guitar driven score.”

The rock opera will be staged in the fictional town of Lake Belle Reve, Miss., and revolves around the tragic deaths of two brothers and a young girl in the late-1950s.

Mellencamp is one of the latest rock artists to break into musical theater, following acts such as Pete Townshend (The Who’s Tommy), Billy Joel (Movin’ Out), Paul Simon (The Capeman), Elton John (Aida, Billy Elliot) and Phil Collins (Tarzan).

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