John Mellencamp Provides an Update on Ghost Brothers of Darkland County

Steve Barton |

Nov 14, 2010

Sometimes projects take a little while to get cooking. Sometimes they take a decade or more, as is the case for the Stephen King/John Mellencamp collaboration Ghost Brothers of Darkland County. But finally progress is being made, and we can look for the production to hit an Atlanta stage sometime during 2011.

According to a recent interview quoted by Lilja’s Library, when he was asked about the status of the project, Mellencamp had this to say:

“We’ve made a recording of all the songs, including ones sung by Kris Kristofferson, who plays the father; Elvis Costello, who plays the Devil; Rosanne Cash, who’s the mother; and Sheryl Crow, who plays a ghost. They sang all the songs and T Bone [Burnett] produced the music.

It’s the ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ of Americana music. We did the dialogue, and that includes Meg Ryan and Matthew McConaughey. We’re putting it all together and are trying to get this staged in Atlanta during the spring or fall of next year. Liv Ullman, who was Ingmar Bergman’s muse, will be directing…

This is a hell of an undertaking; just getting everybody together to read and sing is like putting kitties in a bag. Steve and I started working on it 10 years ago.”