Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story

Episode One- August 26th, 2022

* Youtube

Episode One- August 29th, 2022
Episode Two- September 5th, 2022
 Episode Three- September 12th, 2022
 Episode Four- September 19th, 2022
 Episode Five- September 26th, 2022
 Episode Six- October 3rd, 2022
 Episode Seven- October 10th, 2022
 Episode Eight- October 17th, 2022
 Episode Nine- October 24th, 2022
 Episode Ten- October 31st, 2022

***Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story*** is a modern webseries adaptation of the Washington Irving short story *The Legend of Sleepy Hollow*. It follows Ichabod Crane, a science teacher, who just moved into the odd town of Sleepy Hollow. When he moves in, he realises must become roomates with The Headless Horseman. The two embark to discover the true head of the horseman throughout the 10 episode series.

## Watch it Here!

* Playlist of all ten episodes and other Headless related content on Youtube
* The Complete Cut of Headless on Youtube

## Plot

Ichabod Crane, a science teacher, just moved into the odd town of Sleepy Hollow. When he moves in, he realises he must become roomates with the headless horseman. Ichabod does not like the idea of a roomate without a head, so the two embark to discover the true head of the horseman. In each episode, the horseman takes on a new head and personality, and the two meet residents of the town who might be able to help.

### "Episode One: The Local Legend"

Ichabod Crane, Sleepy Hollow Middle School's new science teacher, has just moved into Sleepy Hollow and gotten directions from Deidrich Knickerbocker. After a little trouble, he manages to find his new home and landlady Douffe Martling. She raises his rent because of some minor inconveniences, which leads Ichabod to go out in search of a roomate. As he is posting posters, he meets several town members such as Matilda Bishop and Kat Van Tassel at Colonial Drugs 'N' Stuff. He discusses the town's history and mayor with Kat. The next day, he attends the mayor's invite only Autumn Gala. At the party he meets several other townsfolk including Brom Bones, the gym teacher at Sleepy Hollow Middle School. Brom tells Ichabod about the local legend of The Headless Horseman, but Ichabod is skeptical. Once Ichabod leaves the party, Brom tries to mimic the Horseman and scare him. However, a far scarier foe- the real Headless Horseman- scares them both.

### "Episode Two: The Ghosts in the Graveyard"

Ichabod agrees to let The Headless Horseman be his roomate. However, before they try to solve the problem, Ichabod must go to school. After class, Ichabod, The Headless Horseman, and Brom all visit Matilda to see if she can help. She thinks of a spell that might help thanks to Verla Wolfson, but not before Lucretia Lazenby stops by. After Lucretia leaves, they cast the spell and it momentairly gives the horseman a head. To try to find other possible heads, the foursome goes grave robbing. Sadly, Ichabod ends up getting a ticket for trespassing and a court date. He is nearly arrested, but the horseman scares off the officer.

### "Episode Three: The Briny Booty"

Matilda finds an old skull in the store to put on The Horseman. When she casts the spell, they take on the form of a pirate named Captain Gravy Davy Crowbones. Ichabod is forced to take the pirate on his first date with Kat Van Tassel. She does not seem to mind much, and the two bond over stories about stars and late parents. In the background, Trivia Night is going on. This occurance causes Brom to brom-bard their date. He is very offended and confused by the pirate and Kat not being "his" girl. The date ends when Ichabod must take a drunken Davy home.

The next morning Gravy returns from outside with a treasure chest. When Douffe stops by and tries to wear a piece of jewerly from the chest, she is stabbed by Captain Gravy Davy Crowbones.

### "Episode Four: The Star on the Stage"

Matilda and Ichabod work quickly to attatch a new random skull to the Horseman. The Horseman takes on the life of Max Lee, a Revolutionary War reenactor. The trio then leave to go watch the Trouser's Sleepy Hollow history play. It stars Trevor Trinkets as the Headless Horseman and Brom's Babes as the set and background characters. Max Lee helps bring several factual inaccuracies about the play to light. After the play, Matilda must leave early to check on Verla and the shop. This leaves Brom, Kat, Max, and Ichabod to walk around together. Brom takes advantage of the situation to try to win Kat over from Ichabod by showing the scary truth that Max Lee is really the Headless Horseman. However, this backfires because Kat is very happy to see the Horseman.

### "Episode Five: The Chaos in Court"

Brom finds a lawyer for Ichabod's court date. However, this lawyer is actually the professional jokester Devlyn Versace. Devlyn chooses to livestream the whole thing, so all her viewers can watch the chaos that ensues. While Ichabod is at his court appearance, Matilda, Verla, Kat, and Brom are at Colonial looking through local beheading reports that Judy Gardenier droped off. They find a lead that the Headless Horseman might be Cotton Van Tassel. Sadly, Ichabod's hearing is not going as well. Judge Pringle befriends Devlyn and gets distracted from the matter at hand. Ichabod is sentenced to 50 hours of community service.

After these separate endeavours, Ichabod, Brom, Matilda, and Devlyn regroup. They go over the days events and put a new head on in place of Devlyn. Thus, Anne Tarry, Mayor Van Tassel's old assistant, is brought back to life. She claims that he killed her.

### "Episode Six: The Distractions at Dinner"

The next night, Ichabod goes to the Van Tassel's for dinner. Anne wants to join, but Ichabod tells her to stop. During the dinner, Matilda and Brom plan to secretly search the upstairs of the house for possible clues. However, Anne is persistent; she joins the dinner in disguise as Mark from Boston. This makes an already stressful dinner for Ichabod even more stressful. During the meal, Ichabod tries to learn more about Elizabeth Van Tassel (Kat's mother) and the Horseman. Ichabod's prying and suggestions upsets Kat.

Upstairs, Brom and Matilda (or, well, mostly Brom) cause a lot of noise. This attracts the attention of Judy, who is currently working. As an excuse, the pair try to say that they are secretly dating and want to be married. Judy takes it upon herself to officiate their marrige right then.

### "Episode Seven: The Secrets In the Sea Log"

After gathering some more clues, Ichabod, Brom, and Matilda all meet back up at Colonial. They begin to go over and piece together various bits of evidence. Later on, Ichabod picks up litter around town for part of his court sentence. While Ichabod is picking up trash, Dr. Crayon emerges from his house to announce that his divorce with Douffe is finalized and that she will be waking up from her coma soon. Once Ichabod finishes for the day, he returns to Colonial with the Captain's sea log. The group realises that the skull for the Horseman is likely in the basement of Storms Inn, Lucretia's hotel. In order to infiltrate the building, the Babes bring in the skull of heist extraordinaire Paulie Tahoe.

### "Episode Eight: The Heist at the Hotel"

Ichabod returns from keeping watch outside the store with an apologetic Kat and adventure hungry Douffe at his side. They join the rest of the gang under the heist leadership of Paulie; he works to assign everyone jobs. During a slight hiccup, the group runs into Lucretia and learns that she used to be a spy with Paulie and her real name Oksana Bolshekov. Luckily, he manages to once again best her, so they are able to break into the basement. In a secret room they find the old diary and skull of Anneke Storms, an orphange owner and witch of the 17th century. Through these clues, they discover that the Headless Horseman is Henrietta Hudson, the leader of the coven and a past powerful political figure in Sleepy Hollow. However, before they can find her skull, they are arrested by the police.

### "Episode Nine: The Clues in the Clink"

Kat and Judy work to break other members of the gang out of jail. When they go to put Anneke's skull on the Horseman, Kat drops it. As a plan 'B', they try to search through the diary to find clues about the location of Henrietta's skull. Kat decides that she needs to confront her dad about his lies. So, the group splits up, and Matilda goes with Kat, Judy and the Horseman go to look for a temporary skull, and Ichabod and Brom try to find the real skull. They agree to meet up later to finnish everything off. Ichabod decides it will be helpful to break into Dr. Crayon's house for evidence. When they open his safe, they find something very unexpected: a death certificate for Kat.

### "Episode Ten: The Haunting of the Hollow"

The old bard has disappeared, and Jonathan Oldstyle has taken his place. Ichabod thinks it is strange, but he shakes it off because he and Brom must find Kat and Matilda in the Van Tassel house. They are nowhere to be found, but Judy brings along Verla and the Horseman to put a new skull on anyways. The new identity is none other than Diedrich, the old bard. This and the return of Oldstyle cause chaos to ensue. However, Ichabod is drawn away into an upstairs bedroom by someone calling his name. Someone sneaks up behind him, and they knock him out. Brom, Diedrich, Verla, and Judy quickly realise he is missing and split up to find him and Baltus Van Tassel.

When Ichabod wakes up, he finds himself tied up and on the ground of the church. Kat is there and confirms some of his suspicions. Rip Van Winkle, the old school teacher, has been locked in the Van Tassel House under a deep sleep in order to keep Kat alive. Now, the time has come for Kat to take Ichabod as her next victim. During this, Brom crashes in with a large sword, but he is caught off guard and knocked out by Matilda. Brom tells the others that he was led to the church because he figured out that the Headless Horseman's head would be there. Using Oldstyle as a distraction, Diedrich is able to take the time to untie Brom and Ichabod. Kat and Matilda return upset, but they allow the bard to take a second to explain through song other sad details details about Kat's death and resurrection. To continue her recklessness, Kat stabs both bards to death.

While they prepare for the ritual, the Horseman sneaks up behind Kat and begins to fight her. This gives Brom and Ichabod an opportunity to look under the stage floorboards for the skull. Ichabod finds the skull, but Kat has beat both the Horseman and Brom. She threatens Ichabod to give the skull to Matilda or else Brom will get hurt. Ichabod chooses to get on the alter and hand the skull to Matilda. Matilda, however, makes a different choice. After much turmoil, she chooses not to perform the spell and gives the skull to the Horseman. Thus, Kat dies, and the Headless Horseman takes on the true form of Henreitta Hudson. Matilda is wrought with sadness, and Henrietta tries to comfort her. Once they leave the church, she also provides the others with advice and thanks them, especially Ichabod, for their help.

Meanwhile, Judy works with the Babes and Officer Meinhof to confirm incriminating evidence about Baltus. They're succesful in baiting him, and he is locked away.

Several months later, Sleepy Hollow is looking better; Rip is running for mayor with Judy at his side, Ichabod is teaching science at the high school, Brom and his Babes are doing well, Matilda has opened her own shop, Trevor has landed a big gig, Baltus is still in jail, and history is being told correctly. At the end, Ichabod opens his door to a new lanlord.

## Credits

### Cast

Listed in order of appearance

* James Tolbert as Rip Van Winkle
* Jon Cozart as Deidrich Knickerbocker
* Joanna Sotomura as Douffe Martling
* Sean Persaud as Ichabod Crane
* Sinéad Persaud as Matilda Bishop
* Mary Kate Wiles as Kat Van Tassel
* Krystina Arielle as Judy Gardenier
* Mai Jensen, Erin McKenna, & Lisel Perrine as Party Goers
* Curt Mega as Eugene Trousers
* Kim Whalen as Ramona Trousers
* Parvesh Cheena as Geoffrey Crayon
* Christopher Higgins as Trevor Trinkets
* Sarah Grace Hart as Lucretia Lazenby
* John Rubinstein as Baltus Van Tassel
* Gabe Greenspan as Brom Bones
* Joey Richter as Tripp
* Corey Lubowich as Cal
* Brian Rosenthal as Blair
* Tom DeTrinis as The Headless Horseman and Trivia Host
* Odysseus ("Oddie") as The Headless Horseman's Horse
* Audrey Grace Marshall as Christa Pierson
* Ginny Di as Verla Wolfson
* Jason Huber as Henri
* Corey Dorris as Officer Baader Meinhof
* Matthew Mercer as Captain "Gravy" Davy Crowbones
* Whitney Avalon, Alec McNamara, Josh Randall, & Emma Rempel as Trivia Players
* Jimmy Wong as Max Lee
* Hilaree Caldwell, Sarah Kieley, Peter Madison, Roxy McDanel, Erin McKenna, Kris Miranda, Ryan Murtha, Luke Palmer, & Sarah Sharpe as Theatre audience members
* Lee Newton as Devlyn Versace
* Julia Cho as Judge Pringle
* Crystal Blockson, Erin Holt, Liam Parry, Duncan Reddy, & Maddie Webb as Courtroom Audience
* Sarah Kieley as Courtroom Sketch Artist
* Lauren Lopez as Anne Tarry
* Dan Mintz as Bruce McConnell
* Margie Mintz, Anna Mintz, Sam Mintz, & Ryan Murtha as Open Mic Audience
* Ryan Garcia as Paulie Tahoe
* Hilaree Caldwell, Sarah Kieley, & Emma Rempel as Wedding Guests
* Tom Lenk as Jonathan Oldstyle
* Felicia Day as Henrietta Hudson

### Crew

* First Assistant Director: Ryan Murtha
* Second Assistant Director: Nick Dugan
* Script Supervisor: Davis DuBose-Marler
* Production Assistants: Willoughby Atkinson, Stacy Baker, Lawrence Carter, Dominique Ellis, Atlas Fitzhugh, Madi Flesch, Mai Jensen, Lisel Perrine
* Executive Producers: Gregg Gibbons & April Morris, Paul Komoroski, Shao Chih Kuo, Michael Walsh, Jane Leach
* Produced by: Sarah Grace Hart, Sean Persaud, Sinéad Persaud, Mary Kate Wiles
* Line Producer: Liam Parry
* Director of Photography: Alex Gallitano
* First Assistant Camera: Devin Hassan, Masih Ahmadzahdeh
* Second Assistant Camera: Nic Palermo, Osiris Larkin, Alex Ullom
* Second Unit Director of Photography: Adam Gundersheimer
* Gaffer: Lawrence Le
* Key Grip: Brian Scott
* Best Boy Electric: Nicholas Lombardo
* Best Boy Grip: Jess Paul
* Additional Electric: John Elkin, Emma Forthofer, Michael Liska, Christian Medina
* Additional Grip: Alex Burdick, Edgar Machuca
* Swings: Ethan Beretz, Bowas Yang, J.D. Arterberry
* Production Designer: Alexander Whittenberg
* Art Director: Duncan Reddy
* Assistant Art Director: Rey Romero
* Art Department Assistants: Erin McKenna, Matthew Pinkney
* Wardrobe Supervisor: Sarah Grace Hart
* Headless Horseman Costume Designed by: Morgan Gannes
* Makeup Artists: Roxanne McDanel, Maddie Webb
* Hair Stylist: Crystal Blockson
* Edited by: Raymond Fraser
* Visual Effects by: FXitinPost
* VFX Supervisor: Christopher Clements
* VFX Artists: Ivan Hryhorjuk, Martin Siuda, Cody Stoltz
* Digital Intermediate Services Provided by: Sodalite Color
* Colorist: Tam Le
* Di Editor: Justin Allison
* Di Coordinator: John Daniels-Riveros
* Logo Design: Corey Lubowich
* Opening Title Animation by: Sarah Kieley
* Original Music by: Dylan Glatthorn
* Original Songs by: Jon Cozart, Sean Persaud & Sinéad Persaud
* Production Sound Mixer: Will Kioultzopoulos
* Post Production Sound Facility: Mayer Sound
* Re-Recording Mixer: Jeremy Barr
* Sound Design: Jeremy Barr
* Foley Artists: Horst Schnattler, Eli Frauscher
* Covid Compliance Officer: Erin Elizabeth Parry
* Heritage Square Museum Site Rep: Kori Capaldi
* On-Set Photographer: Christopher Higgins

## Development

The idea originally started because of fanfiction Sinéad Persaud had written as a young teen; in it, she wrote about the Headless Horseman and Ichabod Crane being roomates. From this, the Persauds made it even more comedic and fleshed out. They developed the rough and large scale idea of the project one day during their work at the Comic Con B99 immersive experience in 2019. They enjoyed drinks at the Coronado Hotel terrace and brainstormed. Because of Covid-19, there was not a strong time restraint for when they would have it completed. This meant it was a very "start and stop" writing process that involved a lot of outlines and drafts. Each draft of the series was given a title based on a colour. They revised and wrote all the way up to main production.  While writing some of the roles, they also had friends already in mind to play the parts. In the end, they had so much material that the script had to be cut from 180 pages to roughly 100. This included cutting an extra head for the Horseman.

The series was set to Kickstart on March 24th, 2020, but when covid-19 hit, the shows Kickstarer date was pushed back to 2021. The Kickstarter Video dropped on June 15th, 2021. Their goal was set for $150k with reveals of new characters and cast members coming every $7.5k. The Kickstarter ended on July 18th, 2021 and raised $201,947 with the help of 2,386 backers. This surpassed the goal and unlocked four stretch goals: have a behind the scenes videographer (Christopher Higgins) (160k), a real life horse on set (175k), create *Unsolved Babesteries* (190k), and the Shipwrecked core four and co get to play a D&D oneshot (200k).

They scouted multiple locations for the series. After narrowing it down, most of the series was filmed at three locations. These locations were Heritage Square Musuem, Rustic Oaks Ranch, and a set for the jail and courtroom scenes. The series began filming its 17 day shoot on February 8th, 2022. This included a load-in day at their main location, Heritage Square Museum, and a final day at Rustic Oaks Ranch.

During post production, they edited the ten episodes in three smaller "sessions." Once every episode was picture locked (aka the cinematic editing was finalized), Dylan Glatthorn would begin working on the episode's score and Mary Kate Wiles would add closed captions.

On June 1st, 2022 a Teaser Trailer for the series was released. And, on June 16th, 2022, they announced that the series would be making its public debut at the 2022 Buffer Festival in Toronto, Canada. The full trailer was released on August 1st, 2022. The first episode was shown to an audience at Buffer during the "short film" block on August 26th, 2022.

Starting on August 29th, 2022, the episodes were uploaded to Shipwrecked's Youtube channel once a week.

## Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story

a map of Sleepy Hollow

On July 9th, 2022, they released a video update on the progress of Headless. They have also uplaoded a video for BTS of the poster shoot. And, after the completion of the show, they released a Blooper Reel. On April 17th, 2023 they released one of their many BTS features to YouTube- From Action to Cut - Filming Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story. Other BTS can be purchased on their website.

The Original Songs and Original Soundtrack were released to streaming services on December 29th and 30th of 2022, respectively.

Before and during the release of Headless, there was an in-world instagram account that you could follow and see posts from @travelsleepyhollow.

They also released a companion series called *Unsolved Babesteries* that follows Brom's Babes as they try to solve Headless Horseman related mysteries. After the release of the full series and companion series, there were also four "commercials" released. They were based on four Sleepy Hollow businesses that Kickstarter backers at the $5,000 level and above created; these businesses were Half Baked Bakery, Lady Artemis' Cat Theatre, The Wake Theatre, and The Ace of Popcorn Tea Shoppe.

## Trivia

* Originally, Jim O'Heir was cast as Baltus Van Tassel.
* Originally, Blake Silver was set to play a role called Tom Walker. Instead, he played the role of Spike in *Unsolved Babesteries*.
* Many characters from the series are named after references to various Washington Irving facts and writings.
* Shipwrecked won the "Excellence in Production" award at Buffer Festival 2022 for *Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story*!
* Parts of Headless Series have also or will play at Stareable Fest 2023 (nominated for 3 awards), Sunscreen Film Fest 2023, NZ Web Fest 2023, and many other festivals.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Series Kickstarter
2. ↑ Talking Headless with Sean and Sinead! Youtube video
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 CurtainCall piece "Making Comedy Out of Terror- An Interview with Sean and Sinéad Persaud on Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story"
4. ↑ *Best Film Ever* podcast episode "Talking Headless with Shipwrecked Comedy's Sean Persaud, Sinead Persaud, & Mary Kate Wiles"
5. ↑ Dear Old World Ep. 4- Dylan Glatthorn
6. ↑ *BFE* podcast episode "Dylan Glatthorn: a BFE Interview- Headless, Shipwrecked, & more"
7. ↑ Instagram post celebrating their win