Christopher Cook

Washington Irving's the Legend of Sleepy Hollow: a Play in Two Acts Christopher Cook

This is the published version of Christopher Cook's celebrated play based on Washington Irving's haunting tale! Available for the first time, this handsomely bound edition of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow presents all the splendor and mystery of Washington Irving's lyrical prose in dramatic form. Beautifully adapted by award-winning playwright, Christopher Cook, this stage version brings to life the eccentric characters and pastoral landscapes of Irving's timeless masterpiece. In the peaceful little hamlet of Sleepy Hollow, all is not as it appears. For behind its genteel facade lies a secret that has long loomed over the bucolic community since the Revolutionary War. The year is 1795. Our story revolves around Christian souls who share cautionary tales of ghosts and goblins, a favorite being that of a Hessian soldier who was beheaded by cannon fire. A stranger's arrival presages unusual events when Ichabod Crane, a journeyman schoolmaster, takes up residence in the quaint village. Fate plays a dark role as his relations with Katrina, heiress apparent to the Van Tassel fortune, disintegrate. Courted by another suitor, the rough-edged Brom Bones, Katrina rebuffs the teacher's advances, opting instead for his formidable rival. Enter the infamous headless horseman, wielding a razor-sharp scythe in one hand and a pumpkin in the other. Galloping wildly through brush and bramble, the goblin tears through the woodlands on a quest of revenge. An unforeseen encounter between Crane and horseman ultimately results in the pedagogue's mysterious disappearance. With a host of Irvian characters as colorful as they are authentic, and a veritable tapestry of words painted in rich images, magic and suspense abound in this tale of dark humor and gothic horror. This play and its subsequent productions is certain to secure Cook's theatrical treatment as a bona fide Halloween classic in the annals of the American stage!