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"  It was weird, sitting in a half-empty auditorium with Stephen King and John Mellencamp, waiting for a reading of their new musical, Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, to begin. Just before the lights dimmed, King ran out to the lobby for a Diet Coke, only to return and find that he already had one at his seat. &amp;quot;Shows you how nervous I am,&amp;quot; he said to no one in particular. Musicals aren&amp;#039;t usually a guy thing. This one, though, is not only tolerable, it&amp;#039;s good. It may be the first-ever musical written by men for men. There&amp;#039;s no orchestra, just two twangy acoustic guitars, an accordion, and a fiddle. The songs are both haunting and all-American. (There are occasional mentions of the Tastee-Freez and pink houses.) And King&amp;#039;s story -- a boy witnesses the deaths of his brothers and a young girl, then forty years later tells what really happened, with help from some ghosts and a Luciferian specter called the Shape -- well, it ain&amp;#039;t Starlight Express. The unlikely team hopes to have Darkland on Broadway by next fall after trial runs in smaller cities. See it. It could be the only musical you ever enjoy. Until they do Pet Cemetery.  This story is part of our second annual register of emerging ideas, trends, discoveries, products, people, and obscene gestures you should know about before everyone else does. &amp;amp;lt;&amp;amp;lt; Read Previous * [Back to Esquire 100] * Read Next &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a3395/ghostbrothers1007/>