Bright Star Theater: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Come celebrate Halloween at the National Theatre with this interactive production of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Join bumbling Ichabod Crane, beautiful Katrina Van Tassel and bullying Brom Bones as they bring to life this Washington Irving classic. The most exciting part is the anticipated arrival of our (not-so-scary) Headless Horseman!The program is best suited for children ages 4 to 10 years. Performances are at 9:30 am and 11:00 am, October 28. Theater in Washington, USA.

This literary classic is a long-time crowd favorite that is perfect for the fall. Join bumbling Ichabod Crane, beautiful Katrina Van Tassel, and the bully Brom Bones as they bring to life this Washington Irving tale. Often called “America’s first work of fiction,” audiences love to see their classmates become volunteers onstage to join the Sleepy Hollow School Choir and ponder at the mystery of the (not-so-scary) Headless Horseman! With a rich study guide available online, this show is a perfect tale for comparing and contrasting with the original text and accomplishing literacy goals.

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is a short story of speculative fiction by American author Washington Irving, contained in his collection of 34 essays and short stories entitled The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Written while Irving was living abroad in Birmingham, England, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” was first published in 1820. Along with Irving’s companion piece “Rip Van Winkle”, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is among the earliest examples of American fiction with enduring popularity, especially during Halloween because of a character is known as the Headless Horseman believed to be a Hessian soldier who lost his head to a cannonball in battle.

Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories “Rip Van Winkle” (1819) and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820), both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works include biographies of George Washington, Oliver Goldsmith, and Muhammad, and several histories of 15th-century Spain dealing with subjects such as Christopher Columbus, the Moors, and the Alhambra. Irving served as the U.S. ambassador to Spain from 1842 to 1846.

He made his literary debut in 1802 with a series of observational letters to the Morning Chronicle, written under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle. After moving to England for the family business in 1815, he achieved international fame with the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. in 1819–20. He continued to publish regularly—and almost always successfully—throughout his life, and just eight months before his death (at age 76, in Tarrytown, New York), completed a five-volume biography of George Washington.