In this fun and not-at-all scary tale for children, set in the dreamy valley of Sleepy Hollow, where even time seems content to slumber. Here lived a lanky schoolmaster named Ichabod Crane—curious in manner, merry in song, and light of step upon the dance floor. Soon his heart was captured by Katrina Van Tassel, the laughing daughter of jolly Farmer Baltus, whose home overflowed with cheer and suppers fit for kings.
But Ichabod’s courtship met with playful opposition from Brom Bones, the village trickster, who delighted in telling the famous legend of the Headless Horseman. In this telling, however, no true fright is found—only laughter, music, and the prancing of lively puppets, who bring the story to life in bright color and joyful motion, sending children smiling and parents chuckling as the merriment comes to rest.
Most of the story is carried along by the bright and cheerful music of Domenico Scarlatti, whose notes dance like fireflies on a summer night. But when the fearsome Headless Horseman begins his wild chase, the music turns dark and stormy, for it is then that Modest Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain fills the air, making the phantom ride all the more thrilling.
45 Minutes
The tale of Sleepy Hollow, once conjured in 1965 by Martin and Margi Stevens, was first brought to life upon the stage by wooden figures most artfully carved, and clad in garments wrought by hand. That inaugural production took to the road in its year of birth, and again through the wandering seasons of the early seventies, before it was laid to rest in quiet slumber.
Long it remained upon the shelf, until the dawn of the year 2000, when Dan Raynor breathed upon it fresh spirit, adapting the script and sending it forth once more before the public eye. There it was greeted with uncommon favor, and has ever since endured as one of the most cherished of our dramatic legends.
