'Runaway Bride' set to music for Duluth theater

The TV movie may never come to pass, but plans are in place for Duluth's Red Clay Theatre to stage "The Runaway Bride, " tagged as an "unauthorized rock opera."

"Of course, I'll be right there in the audience, supporting the Red Clay Theatre, " said Duluth Mayor Shirley Lasseter, one of the principal figures both in the musical and the actual events of the drama that gripped Gwinnett County and the country.

Writer Jamie Heck, a Duluth resident, said the musical will not be a satire or spoof of the non-wedding between Jennifer Wilbanks and John Mason in April 2005.

Rather, Heck said, the plot revolves more around the community's reaction to that week's events --- her disappearance, the search, her return --- that gave Duluth national and international renown.

In fact, Heck said that Wilbanks' and Mason's characters will have minor parts and, for legal reasons, won't even be named. He has not spoken with the parties involved, he said.

"I really want it to be a good story about the community, " Heck said, "and a positive story about the community without it being sappy."

Going positive would be a different tack than most of the response the story has engendered. Wilbanks and Mason have been the objects of much derision ever since Wilbanks returned after fleeing her 600-guest Duluth wedding. At first, Wilbanks told authorities she had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted before confessing she had made the story up and hopped a bus to New Mexico. She pleaded guilty to lying to police. She was placed on two years' probation and was required to perform community service.

The couple eventually split, and then in September 2006, Wilbanks sued Mason for $500,000 and household items she said belonged to her. Wilbanks claimed that Mason made a deal with a media company to sell their story, then used the money to buy a house in Dacula.

Mason countersued. In December, they dropped their lawsuits.

After the settlement, Claude Mason, the would-be groom's father, said, perhaps a bit too hopefully, "I don't know if it is even a story anymore."

The musical is scheduled to open in October. The production, which will feature original music, is still being developed, Heck said. A page on the theater's Web site sought resumes and head shots for the production.