Whatever
happened
to Ichabod
Crane? ...
Sleeping Beauty’s
Side of the Story
Sixth-grade students from St.
John Neumann Regional Academy were recently treated to the
story of “The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow” by Washington Irving.
The ending of the story leaves
the reader wondering whatever
happened to Ichabod Crane after facing the Headless Horseman. Below is an example of
what one student decided really
happened.
By ELLORA FIGURED
Sixth grade student
Everyone wondered whatever
happened to Ichabod Crane. Sleeping
Beauty, also known as Aurora, knows
exactly what happened to him.
Long, long ago, Aurora pricked her
finger on the spindle of the magic
spinning wheel. She
was placed on a bed
in the castle tower
and that’s when
Ichabod and the
Headless Horseman showed up.
The
Headless
Horseman threw
the
pumpkin
(which was actually
FIGURED
magic) and they
ended up in Sleeping Beauty’s world.
The Evil Witch at that time was
outside of the castle waiting for the
Prince to show up. It turned out the
Prince snuck behind the castle to get
to the tower. The Headless Horseman showed up in front of the castle
and the Evil Witch thought he was
the Prince!
Ichabod showed up at the edge of
the woods, a short walk away from
the castle. Suddenly, three fairy godmothers popped up out of nowhere!
Ichabod jumped to his feet as fast as
he could. Then he paused in amazement. He had never seen a fairy before, let alone three! Then, as fast as
they came, they were gone.
Ichabod walked up and over the
drawbridge to observe the scenery of
his strange land. Scenery wasn’t the
only thing Ichabod saw.
He watched as the Headless
Horseman was dodging blasts of
magic the Evil Witch was shooting
out of her wand. The wicked Witch
waved her wand this way and that
way at the poor Headless Horseman.
Then, all of a sudden, the Evil
Witch cast a spell upon herself. In a
matter of seconds she was a huge
black and purple dragon! She was 10
times taller than the trees!
“A ha ha ha!” cackled the Evil
Witch.
“You’ll never get me!” said the
Headless Horseman, full of confidence and, at the same time, full of
fear.
Suddenly flames shot out of the
dragon’s mouth. The flames swallowed up almost everything that
came in its way.
All of that fire scared the Headless Horseman’s horse, literally. The
horse collapsed with the poor Headless Horseman still on it!
The Headless MAN was left with
nothing but his sword. It just wasn’t
his day.
Then Ichabod realized what he
had to do to save the strange land.
He would have to conquer both the
Evil Witch and the Headless Horseman.
Poof! The three fairies reappeared
right in front of Ichabod. He told
them who he was and why he was in
this strange land.
“Wait!” he said before they left. “I
need your help!”
“So do we,” said the three fairies
all at once.
“I need a bow and arrows.”
“We need you to fight the Evil
Witch and the guy without his head!”
said Merryweather, one of the fairies.
Poof! Ichabod had a bow and two
arrows in his hand. Ichabod was
known around his world for his
archery skills.
First, he aimed at the Headless
Horseman. Ichabod had the sight of a
hawk as he shot the first arrow.
Whoosh! One down, one to go.
Whoosh! Down went the Evil
Witch with a loud boom!
The fairies thanked Ichabod and
disappeared once again.
Meanwhile, the poor Prince scaled
the very high tower to Sleeping
Beauty. Aurora was kissed by the
Prince and awoke. So did all of the
other people in the kingdom.
Aurora and the Prince were married, and lived happily ever after. So
did Ichabod. He was knighted, met a
girl who lived in the kingdom, married her and had two lovely children.
Then he realized he didn’t have
his hat ...
WILLIAMSPORT SUN-GAZETTE
Monday, November 10, 2008
Page B-8
This page was created
by students at
St. John Neumann
Regional Academy
To be, or not to be?
Students watch
local ‘Hamlet’
performance
By RYAN A. WORKMAN
Senior
O
n Friday, Oct. 3, students from Mr. John
Litchfield’s Advanced
Placement English
classes at St. John Neumann Regional Academy had the distinct
honor of seeing the American
Shakespeare Center’s production
of William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” at the Community Arts Center.
It was my privilege to visit the
theater early to meet and chat
with the very exciting and energetic cast and crew, as well as observe a few pre-show preparations
of music, dance and comedy, all of
which had great effect as a swarm
of high school students crowded
the theater. Many of these students were about to witness their
first live Shakespearean stage
production.
Before the show, I was able to
interview three
important characters, Hamlet,
Ophelia and
Claudius. Hamlet’s character is
played by Luke
Eddy. Ophelia’s
character is
played by Brandi
WORKMAN Rhome, and
Claudius’s character is played
by Jonathan Reis.
Eddy informed me that this is
his first year with the group and
that they have traveled to Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Maryland,
as well as Pennsylvania. Reis
added that the group stays mostly
in the northeast, but traveled as
far west as Minnesota and as far
south as the Florida Keys.
When asked how the group
learned “Hamlet,” Eddy replied
that he spent a lot of time with
the script.
“I got the contract in late February and immediately started
gathering all the videos and different texts for Hamlet. There are
the First Quarto, Second Quarto,
and Folio editions,” Eddy said. “We
actually do two different scene sequences, so that seemed to complicate things even more to get into
it, but all the prep time was really
helpful.”
Reis added that it took a lot of
studying and paraphrasing.
“We know our part at least two
months ahead of time,” Rhome
said. “We know the part before rehearsals.”
When asked what the characterization methods were, Rhome
replied, “Basically, any trick I can
get my hands on. There’s so much
text there and such a plethora of
different facets to ‘Hamlet’ that in
order to embody all of those differ-
JOHN NEVILL JR./Sun-Gazette Correspondent
St. John Neumann Regional Academy high school students watch the American Shakespeare Center’s
production of “Hamlet” on Oct. 3 at the Community Arts Center.
ent moments, it takes anything. A
lot of it is about remembering the
sounds. I’m a very auditory person.”
I asked if their interpretation
of the play changes for different
audiences, knowing that today
they were performing before a
group of students.
“No, not really,” Eddy responded. “We try to stay as consistent
as possible, and a lot of that
comes out of working with the
text and sticking to what Shakespeare wrote and dealing with all
of those things, not adding anything on to it, but embodying that
as fully as possible. By sticking to
the text, it makes it easy to say
that there are some things that
maybe a younger audience won’t
get, but there’s also going to be
quite a few things that they will
get.”
“There is no time to make the
character new onstage, if you stick
to the words Shakespeare gave
us, they (the audience) will get it,”
Rhome said.
When asked if they would perform differently onstage if audiences behaved the same as those
in Elizabethan England — shouting, booing, rioting — Eddy responded, “I think essentially you
would have to adapt to what the
audience is giving you. Also, we
have no idea what the actual acting style of the day would have
been, what speech style they were
using and how they were doing it.
But, with regards to the audience,
most certainly, there would have
to be definite changes to how you
deliver lines to that audience.”
Regarding the enormous task
of portraying such well known
characters as those in Hamlet,
Eddy said, “It’s intimidating, but
also, at the same time, it’s very
comforting, because I’m probably
not going to do anything new.
Everything has been done! That
gives me the ability to pick and
choose what I want to do. With a
play like Hamlet, everyone’s going
to have an opinion.”
Rhome added, “It’s exciting and
intimidating. You just have to focus on the words and the stage,
and forget the audience is out
there.”
In my English class, we debated over who killed Ophelia, so I
asked Rhome who killed Ophelia,
the character that she plays.
She responded, “I think Ophelia, in her current mental condition, kills herself, while the Queen
stands by and does nothing about
it.” That is exactly what my class
concluded.
Eddy shed some light on how
his character applies to today’s
culture and situation.
He said, “I think Hamlet is so
applicable in the struggle that he
deals with having another man
come in and assume his father figure. With so many kids with divorced families and single moms
and dads, people can readily identify with Hamlet. Also it’s the ba-
sic love story of a guy and a girl
who have many conflicts and confrontations, and this doesn’t seem
to work. We’ve also seemed to
find a lot of the humor which
makes it unique.”
In musical theater, the war is
between music and words. I asked
the three if, in dramatic theater,
there is a war between drama and
words.
Eddy replied, “In classical theatre, the war is more between an
audience’s expectations of stale
and ineffective or inapplicable
theater to today’s current society. I
think there have been a lot of people who have walked out of the
show and said, ‘Wow, that play
made sense!’ I think a lot of people don’t expect this. Even my
parents, who aren’t Shakespeare
playgoers, said they actually liked
what they saw.”
When asked about their theatrical philosophy, and what they
try to accomplish onstage every
time at every performance, Eddy
responded, “I attempt to connect
with an audience and display a
truthful moment, and invite them
to laugh or to cry or to feel pity,
and have that be both a distraction and a reminder of their own
lives outside the theater.”
Rhome added, “I want my characterization and style to improve
every time. I want to do what
Shakespeare says so you laugh or
cry, whatever you (the audience)
want!”
On giving advice to future actors, Eddy said, “Do as many auditions as you possibly can! All auditions help you grow. The more you
do, the more comfortable you become during performance.”
The opportunity not only to see
these actors perform, but also
speak with them in depth about
Shakespearean acting, gave me
great insight as to how much the
American Shakespeare Center’s
Troupe really knew and appreciated their roles. It certainly was
meant to be that so many local
schools experienced this production.
The ASC stayed true to Shakespearean settings by leaving the
house lights on and bringing the
drama to the audience by moving
seats onstage and performing
right in the aisles.
Best of all, the students enjoyed their introduction to Shakespearean drama saying, they “enjoyed it,” could “understand the dialogue,” and would “definitely try
to see another show.”
On behalf of St. John Neumann Regional Academy, I would
like to thank Mr. Rob Steele, Mrs.
Jeri Sims, the Community Arts
Center, Mr. Frank Pellegrino and
Business Leaders Organized for
Catholic Schools (BLOCS) of Lycoming County, for helping introduce Shakespeare to a new audience of theatergoers.