Legend of Sleepy Hollow
by John Minigan, from a story by Washington Irving
Directed by Steven Carpenter
September 24 – October 18, 2026 (Press/Opening September 27 at 2:30)
Talk Back with the playwright after the Sunday matinee on October 4th.
Enter an abandoned (and possibly haunted) tavern in Sleepy Hollow for this haunting and humorous autumn treat. Rediscover the timeless legend of the headless horseman in author Washington Irving’s ghoulishly funny cautionary tale of overconfident schoolmaster Ichabod Crane and his imminent encounter with the terrifying Headless Horseman – told by one actor. It’s a guaranteed visit of supernatural chills, laughs, and the power of storytelling that will leave you on the edge of your seat.
“Splendid … Captures both the thrill of the spooky story and its moral … with subtlety and finesse… Minigan manages to give this familiar tale a fresh eye.”
– Terry Byrne, The Boston Globe
“A HIGH SPOOKINESS QUOTIENT [and] AN ABUNDANCE OF SILLINESS AND HUMOR FAST” – BroadwayWorld
“This SPELLBINDING theatrical experience combines humor, suspense, romance, and the supernatural. IT IS PERFECT FOR AUDIENCES OF ALL AGES!” – MetrMag
JOHN MINIGAN
is a recent Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellow in Dramatic Writing. He has had new work commissioned by Concert Theatre Works, Gloucester Stage Company, The Lyric Stage Company of Boston, Back Porch Theater, Funky Little Theatre Company, and The Plumbing Museum. His plays have been presented in New York by Circle Rep, Hey Jonté, Core Artist Ensemble, Greenhouse Ensemble, Up Theater, Playground Ensemble, CreateTheater, Urban Stages, ANDTheatre, Shelter West, and others, and produced around the US and UK by Gloucester Stage Company, Barrington Stage Company, Greater Boston Stage Company, Centastage, Dean Productions, Good Company, YASPLZ, Gather by the Ghostlight, and more. He has had new plays developed and workshopped at Portland Stage Company, the Utah Shakespearean Festival, Great Plains Theatre Commons, The Madison New Works Lab, Moonbox Productions, New Repertory Theatre, The Green Mountain New Play Festival, Actors’ Repertory Theatre of Vermont, Dayton Playhouse, The Landing Theatre, Theatre Resources Unlimited, and the Orlando Shakespeare Theater; selected four times for the Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Festival, for TRU Voices (NYC), Orange Tea Theatre (Amsterdam), The Lanford Wilson Festival, SoBe Arts, IMPACT 15 International Theatre Festival, BARE Essentials and Best of BARE Essentials (London), the Boston Theater Marathon, Short + Sweet (Dubai, Los Angeles, Sydney, Delhi, and Queensland), the Snowdance Comedy Festival, Seoul Players (South Korea), Boston Play Café, and with Gather by the Ghostlight and other podcasts.
His plays have won the 2025 Playwrights’ Revolution at Sacramento’s Capital Stage, the 2023 Broadway World Award for Best New Play in Boston, the 2022 Judith Royer Award for Excellence in Playwriting from The Kennedy Center/Association for Theatre in Higher Education, the 2022 Louise Wigglesworth Excellence in Playwriting Award from The Lab Theater of Florida. His work was also a 2020 winner of the New American Voices Festival, a 2019 Clauder Competition Gold Prize winner, a finalist for the 2018 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, a finalist for the 2014 Heideman Award from the Actors Theatre of Louisville, and a nominee for the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding New Script produced in Boston in 2023, 2019, and 2015. His short plays have also won numerous competitions and awards.
John’s work is published by Ghost Light Publications, Applause, Smith & Kraus, YouthPLAYS, Theatrefolk, and university presses. The Asylum Giant film Noir-Man, based on his play The Maltese Walter, is currently on the film festival circuit. John served as the Dramatists Guild Ambassador for the Boston Region from 2018 to 2025 and is currently affiliate faculty at Emerson College and has taught at Shakespeare & Company, the Huntington Theatre Company, and The Hanover Theatre Conservatory.
For more information, visit http://www.johnminigan.com/bio.html
WASHINGTON IRVING
Our tale teller is played by Peter Boyer, who previously appeared at Washington Stage Guild in Sofonisba, Mrs. Warren’s Profession and Discord.
Peter has also been seen locally at Arena Stage (Holiday), Ford’s Theatre (1776, Parade, Shenandoah), Shakespeare Theatre Company (Way of the World), Olney Theatre (1776, The Sound of Music), Rep Stage (The Fantasticks), MetroStage (Broadway Christmas Carol, Uprising), Infinity Theatre (The Fantasticks), Imagination Stage (Heidi, Sleeping Beauty), Adventure Theatre (Tinkerbell, How I Became a Pirate), Baltimore Shakespeare Festival (Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors, Scapin!) and the Alliance for New Music Theatre (Vanek Unleashed).
Peter has performed in theatres across the country, in shows such as Unnecessary Farce at the Tent Theatre in Springfield MO, My Fair Lady at the Ozark Actors Theatre in Rolla MO, Groucho: A Life in Revue at Wayside Theatre in Middletown VA, Twelfth Night at the Cumberland Theatre in Cumberland MD, as well as several shows in Colorado, Ohio, and much of the mid-West. His plays Captain Hook: My Story, or How I Clawed My Way to the Top and Tofana Bobana have received multiple productions in the Washington-Baltimore area.
THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW – the play –
is based on Washington Irving’s classic spooky story.
Washington Irving (1783 – 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He wrote the short stories “Rip Van Winkle” (1819) and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820), both of which appear in his collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works include biographies of Oliver Goldsmith, Muhammad, and George Washington, as well as several histories of 15th-century Spain that deal with subjects such as the Alhambra, Christopher Columbus, and the Moors. Irving served as the American ambassador to Spain in the 1840s.
