THE CAMPAIGN RUNS JUNE 15 - JULY 18, 2021
Shipwrecked Comedy, the literary comedy troupe and production company best known for Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party, a web-series with more that 2.1M views, is launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund production of Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story, a new, episodic, scripted web series. Headless will be a whimsical single camera comedy fusing goofy sitcom humor with the dark stylings of Washington Irving’s ghostly tales to create a high-concept horror/comedy/mystery mashup.
SYNOPSIS:
Unable to pay the rent in his new apartment on a science teacher’s salary, charmingly introverted new Sleepy Hollow resident Ichabod Crane must take on a roommate. That roommate? None other than that fearsome creature of legend: The Headless Horseman! The Horseman promises to help pay the rent as long as Ichabod helps him discover the location of his head, allowing him to finally find out who he really is, and finally find peace.
Shipwrecked Comedy plans to shoot Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story in September 2021 in and around both Los Angeles and NYC. Access to several visually striking, historic locations will be provided by the historic Heritage Square Museum in LA, and the Historic House Trust of NYC.
Shipwrecked Comedy’s Sinead Persaud describes the origins of Headless:
“When I was 14 years old I was obsessed with the story of Sleepy Hollow. The Tim Burton Film, the Disney Adaptation, I ate it all up. I was also an avid Fan Fiction writer back in those days. I wrote a series of short stories about the Headless Horseman trying to live a normal life without a head. Now, years later, we are making a show inspired (lightly) by that Fan Fiction!”
It was important to Shipwrecked Comedy to retain some of the thematic elements from the original literary classic: the supernatural versus the natural, how history and folklore can inform a community, how greed can poison humanity, etc. But this is a fresh take on these familiar characters. Not only is Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story a comedy, but new themes emerged such as trying to find identity in a world that can be hostile to those who don’t fit in. Everyone can relate to the unnerving feeling of not truly understanding who they are or where they belong.
Originally Shipwrecked had planned a Kickstarter campaign for March 2020, but it was postponed by the pandemic. The team spent the year reshaping and rewriting, and emerged with a script that is sure to delight audiences which they describe as “totally bananas”. Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story is spooky, funny, and tugs on the heartstrings, which is what all Shipwrecked projects aim to do!
ABOUT SHIPWRECKED COMEDY:
Vaguely Historical. Loosely Literary. Stupidly Smart.
Shipwrecked Comedy is a production company committed to creating dynamic, funny, and intelligent content for digital spaces and beyond. Shipwrecked was founded in 2013 by sibling co-writers and actors Sean and Sinéad Persaud. Actors/producers Mary Kate Wiles and Sarah Grace Hart solidified the team in 2016. Shipwrecked has attracted a very diverse, active and loyal audience by presenting stories that marry a fondness for history and literature with dry humor, broad comedy, beautiful period costumes, and cinematic production values.
Shipwrecked Comedy’s work includes Clue-inspired murder mystery Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party, film noir short The Case of the Gilded Lily, and Little VVomen: a sketch that imagines the March sisters into a devilish coven. Shipwrecked Comedy has amassed nearly 5 million views, raised over $200K through crowdfunding, and solidified their place as the internet’s home for smart, historical, visually striking storytelling.
WEBSITE: https://www.shipwreckedcomedy.com/
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/shipwrckdcomedy
TUMBLR: https://shipwreckedcomedy.tumblr.com/