Sleepy Hollow by Synetic Theatre at Olney Theatre Center by Lisa Traiger

Sleepy Hollow

Synetic Theater (@synetictheater)

Paata and Irina Tsikurishvili, founding artistic directors (@paatatsikurishvili)

Presented by Olney Theatre Center (@olneytheatre)

October 7 – November 1, 2026

Written by Lisa Traiger (@dcdancewatcher)

Cover photo by Teresa Castracane Photography (@teresacastracanephotography)

As daylight wanes, autumn brings forth spooky season. Halloween may be the centerpiece of longer nights and colder days, but more indoor time lends itself to ghostly tales.

In the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region, no theater does better at unsettling minds and sending chills through theater goers than Synetic Theater. The Arlington, Va.-based company founded 25 years ago by the husband-and-wife team of Paata and Irina Tsikurishvili draws heavily from their training and experience in their home nation of Georgia. Across the decades this one-of-a-kind company has drawn on vintage European and Russian theatrical techniques emphasizing mime, theatrical movement and dance, along with good old fashioned stage technology like trap doors, puppetry, masks, props, fog, and simple yet intricately crafted set designs to create magic, sometimes even mayhem, on stage. For dance focused concert goers, anything from the creative cauldron that Synetic manifests is a must-see.

Since its beginnings the Tsikiruishvilis have leaned heavily into original adaptations from the Western literary canon, often Shakespeare, but also Franz Kafka, George Orwell, Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, even Charlie Chaplin, have been re-imagined into compact embodied dramas, mostly with little or no spoken dialogue. The result feel like more than devised theater with its often prop-heavy Rube Goldberg-like-machinations. Rather Synetic offers an original take on classic tales attuned for American audiences who appreciate adaptation and reinvention of oft-familiar material. The company first caught my eye with what remains my favorite of the many productions it’s crafted: a silent and stunning “Hamlet.” The adaptation remains, for me, memorable and visceral years later in how engaging and risky it was to remove the poetic and compelling Shakespearean dialogues and monologues to retell this tale through movement and gesture. In compacting the often multi-act, multi-hour traditional script into swift, intermissionless 90 minutes the work felt brand-new.

I’ve been a fan since.

Over the years the collaborators and performers, many but not all also Georgian nationals, have contributed to the company’s continued growth, including the Tsikurishvili’s now adult son, Vato, who grew up in rehearsals and back stage and now uses his strong-man physique and physical dexterity both on stage and back stage, joining his parents in the family business.

This fall, Synetic’s 2018 work, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” returned to the stage. But at present the company is itinerant, as the owners of their one-time movie theatear space in Crystal City, Va., have chosen to redevelop the complex into a new commercial and residential complex. The good news for those on the Maryland side of the Potomac: We didn’t need to cross the bridge to enjoy the show which ran at Olney Theatre Center’s intimate Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab.

Known as the United States’ first ghost story, Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” centers around town outsider Ichabod Crane. The lanky, striver hired to teach the local children, falls for wealthy bachelorette Katrina Van Tassel, daughter of a rich farmer. But, of course, the pompous Crane has a rival, The aptly named brawny local Brom Bones, who has a trickster bullying streak that he hides from Katrina.

Adaptors Nathan Weinberger and Paata Tsikurishvili dug into the back story of the New England culture and lore that influenced Irving’s sleepy fictional village situated in a valley of Westchester, New York. There historic Revolutionary War battlefields and home sites, including a farmhouse that served as General George Washington’s headquarters, remain. Most who encounter this region today don’t think deeply about the resonance this history of disputed territory, hand-to-hand combat on horses, injuries and deaths of soldier from Revolutionary-era firearms and how that darker story of the Revolutionary War shaped the foreboding backdrop of the tale.

Scenic designer Phil Charlwood’s series of columns fashioned from chicken fence wire stands like sentinels representing the dark, heavily forested land, or totems from former inhabitants. A draped piano with a coffin-like resemblance stands in a corner; a human head resting near, a reminder that all is not ordinary. Ensemble actors move an oversized table in and out for scenic. The music, dense and dramatic matches the dark-and-stormy-night atmosphere. Resident composer and sound designer Koki Lortkipanidze, a founding company member, creates atmospheric scores that put many movie composers to shame with his skill and depth of understanding the importance of keeping viewers aurally engaged in wordless productions.

Horse Spirit appears through mist. Then a scream. Danced by Maryam Najafzada, who moves like she trained in rhythmic gymnastics, her arm/hooves kick up, while her head, adorned with ears and a flowing auburn ponytail, shimmies. Then Headless Horseman swings a broad sword. Is that a shot fired? Has this sleek animal/human been injured? Writhing with a deeply arched back, she paws the air, her body convulses. The horse with a Headless Horseman – Philip Fletcher – suggest ancient remnants of battles and how they reside in collective memory. This horse ballet prologue hearkens back, perhaps, to that warring period in this so-called bucolic land, while foreshadowing violence.

Then a decapitated man enters carrying his head and crosses to the piano where, like a phantom organist, he plays amid thunder, lightening and wind sounds. These eerie scenes emerge with weighty scary dreamlike energy.

As scenes alternate between the town and the forest, skirmishes, battles and deaths fill the forest with increasingly grisly action. The victor leaves a strip of red cloth on the dead. A living-dead scene with zombie-like characters carrying skulls, marching blindly occurs in the atmospheric forest sequences, where the heart-rate-raising spooky action unfolds, straying from Irving’s original story. Synetic’s adaptors across the repertoire seek to uncover back stories and deeper moments, at times, than the original called for. Here, using Synetic’s richly wrought movement language, choreographed by Irina Tsikurishvili, with the fights choreographed by son Vato, a more complex origin story emerges from what was once a spooky, fireside tale.

As Ichabod Crane, Vato Tsikurishvili is an anomaly. Irving’s short story with its elevated prose describes him as “scarecrow like,” tall, exceedingly lank with extra-long limbs and oversized feet tall and exceedingly lank with disproportionately long limbs and oversized and “a long nose likened to a weather-cock.” While Vato is full bodied, muscular, shaved head with a stocky wrestler’s build. His rival Bram was written as the strong, handsome farm hand, a bit of a brag and jokester, and tall, long good looking Tony Amante leans into frat-boy energy. Katrina, the apple of Ichabod’s eye, is meant to be a beauty of her era; Irving describes her as plump, rosy cheeked and blooming, her dresses a mix of old-fashioned Dutch and modern 18^th-century finery. Sia Li Wright carries herself as a dancer and is built accordingly, her dark wavy curls, and lithe, lean body reflect contemporary feminine beauty standards.

Scenes in town, including a carnival like-moment of camaraderie and drinking, and in the wealthy van Tassel family farmhouse, are more brightly lit as the characters mingle and interact. When Ichabod enters, an outsider, he spots Katrina van Tassel from afar in a love-at-first-sight “West Side Story”-“Dance at the Gym” moment. They intertwine and dance together, yet Ichabod misses his chance for a kiss. Away from the built and communal world, the forest holds both mystery and memories as past and present intermingle. Soldiers with tri-corn caps dance a lusty polka with townswomen.

The magic and mystery of the forest action hearkens back to the revolutionary war period where violence and bloodshed left a mark on the community, passing on the generation trauma from the war. Are the Headless Horseman and Horse Spirit real or apparitions – what about those sword wheeling Hessian/German soldiers? Real or dreamt, these images remain ensconced in the communal zeitgeist, as does the lengthening shadow of death. They’re powerful and haunting reminders of what witnessing or experiencing violence can pass to future generations.

Synetic’s “Sleepy Hollow” reframes a literary classic into a meaningful and provocative piece that poses resonant probing 21^st-century questions. And while it’s been more than a century since the U.S. citizens have experienced warfare on its home soil, communal trauma remains. Present-day online news media delivers discord and combat violence from across the world right into our pockets on our 24/7 devices. That war or overseas disaster shared or reported in near-immediate time forces distant trauma-inducing experiences on us. The after-effects of this ghost story linger, just as they did in 19^th-century America. We’re all living haunted lives.

© 2026 Lisa Traiger. All rights reserved.

Lisa Traiger (she/her) has been observing, thinking and writing about dance in the DMV and beyond for more than four decades. She teaches dance appreciation at Montgomery College in Rockville, Md. When not in a theater seat, art gallery, or dance studio, you can find Lisa cultivating her garden, as Voltaire advised. You can read more about Lisa on our STAFF page!