Valley Theatre will perform “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” as this year’s fall play, with performance dates set for Oct. 24-26 at the Franklin Park Arts Center due to construction on the auditorium. Information about buying tickets will be released on the Viking Theatre Instagram closer to the show dates.
This year’s fall play, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” has performance dates set for Oct. 24-26 at the Franklin Park Arts Center due to construction on the auditorium. Information about buying tickets will be released on the Viking Theatre Instagram closer to the showdates.
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” follows schoolteacher Ichabod Crane set during the post-Revolutionary era, set in the eerie New England town of Sleepy Hollow. Because Crane is quite the ladies’ man, he sets his eyes on the lovely Katrina Van Tassel, daughter of a wealthy farmer.
Crane quietly competes with buff and brawny Brom Bones for Van Tassel’s heart. The play follows Crane’s intense belief in witchcraft and other supernatural activities.
However, in his quest for love, Crane might just find himself tormented by a certain Headless Horseman.
The large difference in personalities and motivations of the characters made it vitally important to have thoughtful casting. Senior Charlotte Abbe (Ichabod Crane) and sophomore Elyse Rath (Katrina Van Tassel) are set to lead the comedic but haunting play.
“It’s my senior year, so I was really happy to get a lead role,” Abbe said. “And it’s even more fun that this role is Ichabod Crane, who is a classically comedic character.”
Although Abbe has experience playing lead roles — she played Amélie in last year’s musical — the position is a first for underclassman Rath.
“I’ve gotten some kind of lead roles at Valley before, but this is probably the biggest so far,” Rath said. “So I’m very excited.”
Other members of the cast and crew are also excited about their new roles. Not only are actors stepping into leadership roles, but senior Izzy Eden has become stage manager for the first time, and is now in charge of the tech crew.
“As stage manager now, I do call cues in the booth,” Eden said. “So I’m up there letting everyone know what’s happening, making sure that we’re all coordinated. But previously, as the assistant stage manager, I would be backstage, helping out with everything. I just really like the environment.”
A common struggle for all students working on the play is the extreme time commitment, which makes it difficult for them to fit the rest of their academic and personal responsibilities in with their rehearsal schedule.
“I am at rehearsal every night until about 6:30,” Eden said. “During tech week, it’s usually about 9 or 10 at night, sometimes even 11.”
Students have rehearsals four days a week, with Fridays off.
“The schedule is very hectic,” junior Emma Tulowitzky (Parson Van Houten and Hair/Makeup Designer) said. “It’s very time-consuming. It’s okay right now, but closer to the show, we get later rehearsals. It’s pretty difficult, having to balance it along with a lot of the other things that I’m doing.”
Even when they aren’t actively in rehearsal, the grind doesn’t stop when preparing for the fall play. For Tulowitzky, it’s all-consuming.
“Pretty much my whole day is preparing for rehearsal,” Tulowitzky said. “Because it’s after school, it’s that thing that you’re waiting for, and whether it’s going to be a good rehearsal or bad one, it’s definitely the big thing that kind of looms over the whole school day.”
Although the cast and crew agree that the schedule is time consuming, they’ve praised efforts to rearrange scheduling to be easier and less stressful for participants.
“Typically, it’s much more rigorous,” Rath said. “But we’ve taken a step back this year. So, less time every day, and more spread throughout the week. So it’s been much better for everyone’s mental health.”
But with shorter rehearsal times, it’s even more vital for the cast to work on their roles outside of the theater.
“When we get home, it’s our job to continue work, and work on memorizing stuff,” Abbe said.
As for the actual activities during rehearsal, the cast first works on the basics, where from then on they can start to run the play and polish up the performance.
“Most rehearsals are blocking, which is basically when we write down all the movements that are going to happen during the show, and we go over what everyone’s going to do during the scene,” Eden said.
Although Eden, as stage manager, appreciates the intricacies of the blocking process, it’s not as enjoyable for the actors.
“Blocking is just really annoying, having to set out each part of the scenes,” Rath said. “I’m usually not doing much, especially with this role.”
Once blocking is done, the crew moves onto what they call “cleaning.”
“Basically, we run the show and make sure that everybody knows what they’re doing,” Eden said. “And then we just tweak some things like a facial expression or a way that somebody moves.”
After blocking and cleaning are perfected, the cast moves onto their favorite part: running the show and getting immersed into their roles.
“Once everyone has their blocking and their lines, the best part is just being able to perform,” Tulowitzky said. “Just being able to put the show together piece by piece is the best feeling.”
The cast and crew are in agreement that the choice of play as “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is a good one, especially to be performed in late October.
“I think that this year, going with more of a spooky theme is a lot of fun,” Tulowitzky said. “It’s been a lot of fun diving into a different theme than we’ve normally done. I’m really happy that we’re doing a theme that’s so season-based. We haven’t done that before, and the stories of the shows that we’re doing are more correlated this year.”
Apart from enjoying the play from a performing standpoint, Eden thinks it’s well-suited for students and families to attend, two things that don’t always go hand-in-hand.
“You will laugh,” Eden said. “It will be funny. And it’s really an interesting story, and one of the shorter plays we’ve done, so it’s not going to be too time consuming.”
