King goes musical

If you were to ask me to word-associate the name Stephen King, I’d probably come up with a list sounding a lot like this: horror, terror, The Dark Tower, CARRIE, and author. My list would be a bit longer than that, given the time, but there’s the gist of it – words I wouldn’t have put in there: musicals and John Cougar Mellencamp. And yet, that’s the news coming out of Playbill: Stephen King and John Cougar lMellencamp are teaming up for a musical entitled GHOST BROTHERS AND DARKLAND COUNTY!

Good thing ‘ghost’ is in the title, or I would’ve thought I’d really taken a jump into bizarro world. The musical’s story goes a bit like this: The Mississippi-set show reportedly takes place in 1957 in fictional Lake Belle Reve (a sly reference to Blanche du Bois’ past?) and concerns an old legend of the deaths of two brothers and a young girl.

Sounds right up King’s alley, that’s for sure. Set to debut next year at the Tony Award-honored Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, GHOST will feature the gothic style of King and the rockin’ style of Mellencamp to tell the story. Both have never done a musical before, so this should be interesting – which is why they’re starting in Atlanta, as Mellencamp puts it, If it goes well in Atlanta, then we’ll come to Broadway. If it don’t go well in Atlanta, we’re done.

With the successful EVIL DEAD: THE MUSICAL hitting stage last year, and the classic SWEENEY TODD splattering blood everywhere it goes, maybe musical horror is the next big thing? Or… maybe not. To check out the full article, go ahead and click HERE, and speaking of horror-ible musicals…