The traditional tale of Sleepy Hollow gets a twist at the Athens Uncorked event “A Night With Ichabod Crane."
The bar at Athens Uncorked was transformed into a Sleepy Hollow tavern Sunday.
For Halloween weekend, Chris Hart, a college instructor at Ohio Northern University and historian, was set to be Ichabod Crane for an audience of 50 and speak of his story one fateful night in Sleepy Hollow.
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is a short story by Washington Irving that tells the tale of Ichabod Crane and his trials with his love, Katrina Van Tassel, conflict with Abraham “Brom Bones” Van Brunt and his run-in with the Headless Horseman.
“It’s been one of my favorite stories for years,” Hart said. “But, everyone has heard the classic version of Ichabod’s story. I thought, ‘well, perhaps there’s more to the story. There’s a different story out there to tell.’ And, it being Halloween, I thought it was a good story to tell.”
Hart decided to put his own spin on the ending of the story. Instead of Crane being lost forever like in Irving’s story, he “married a rich widow and became a successful lawyer,” according to Hart.
In addition to Ichabod Crane, Hart has about 20 other characters he plays, ranging from a Titanic survivor, to Sherlock Holmes and even a “hobo.”
“I started storytelling and portraying characters about 7-8 years ago,” Hart said. “I always wanted to do it, but life was always too busy. It was kind of one of those ‘life’s too short, let’s have some fun’ type of thing.”
Hart said he traveled about three hours to Athens to perform as Ichabod Crane at Athens Uncorked.
“My son graduated from OU with both his bachelor’s and master’s degree,” Hart said. “Nate (owner of Athens Uncorked) was in my son’s wedding, and we just stayed close. They have the wine bar, and I thought ‘Let’s have some fun sometime.’ And that’s how this all developed tonight.“
Others traveled from all around to see the performance, some of which were dressed in Victorian garb to celebrate the “Sleepy Hollow” story.
“We saw the event on Facebook, and told everyone to come,” Penni AlZayer, a New Plymouth resident and director of the Rough Magic theater group, said. “We all had plenty of appropriate clothes, and naturally being a theater group, we decided to come.”
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Hart said he enjoyed the performance and the Athens atmosphere.
“This was the perfect time to (do) the performance, after yesterday’s festivities,” Hart said. “It was kind of like ‘Let’s let Halloween go with a nice story.’ And this was the perfect way.”
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