Joaquin Stewart, 12, originally signed up for the Santa Fe Performing Arts young actors troupe to do technical work, such as lighting, but he soon caught the acting bug.

"When I started, I wanted to just be a tech guy," Joaquin said. "But I just started to like doing acting because I saw other people doing it and I started to get interested in it."

Joaquin is playing the Headless Horseman in Santa Fe Performing Arts upcoming production of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

"He's ominous," Joaquin said about his character. "He's just like a gloomy, ominous figure that appears and is said to haunt this bridge, the church bridge. People think his name is Major Andre, who died in the Revolutionary War, supposedly."

Director Meg Burns said this play was perfect for the season.

"I really wanted to do something that was seasonal," Burns said. "When I was thinking about plays for the fall over the summer, I thought, 'What's a really autumny play?' and this came to mind."

It's the classic story of a love triangle causing one man to lose his mind — or fake losing his head. Icabod Crane and Brom Bones are both gaga over the same girl, Katrina Van Tassel. Brom Bones pretends to be a headless ghost, haunting a bridge, to try and get rid of his romantic competition.

"I really like the scenes where Icabod and Brom are kind of sizing each other up," Burns said. These scenes are especially entertaining as young actors Benjamin Trujillo , 12, and Brandon Lucero, 11, do a wonderful job of adding a little comedic sense to their encounters.

"He's a bully because he always picks on Icabod Crane," Benjamin said of his character Brom Bones, who only has to puff out his chest to send little Icabod Crane stumbling. "I've usually played best friends in other plays, but in this play I'm playing a mean character."

Benjamin said this is also the first time his character has had a love interest, who is played by Santa Fe Performing Arts veteran, Kiana Lamberton.

"I like the way she's very manipulative and she gets what she wants," Kiana said of Katrina. "I just like playing a character that's different than me."

Kiana, who's naturally the opposite of the manipulative Katrina, said she watched the comedy Mean Girls for inspiration. She looked to Mean Girls character, Regina, who's the meanest of the mean in the movie.

"She acts really sweet, but she's just really not," Kiana said. "She's a fun character because I've never really played anyone like her."

Brandon brings a little bit of James Bond to his character — Crane, Icabod Crane.

"He's a very smart person, not very athletic, but a gentleman — a lady's man," Brandon said. "There are little parts of James Bond when he's eating, when he's talking to girls, and when he says his name."

Nick Gomez, 12, has always played the goofball in plays, but not this time. He's playing both Van Ripper and Irving.

"Irving is a smart gentleman who tells about Icabod's life and the headless horseman," Nick said. "Van Ripper is one of the elders in Sleepy Hollow.

"I usually play the idiot, someone that's really dumb and a person who does comedy," Nick added. "It's kind of hard to play (Van Ripper) because he's more of a dramatic and more serious than I usually like to be."

"I like the story because it's pretty different," Kiana said. "My favorite part abut the story, of course, is when the Headless Horseman attacks Icabod and it's secretly Brom Bones but nobody really figures that out."

Burns said that this play has been a learning experience for her cast members, especially in the realm of vocabulary.

"It's set in a specific time period — the late 1700s — so there are a lot of phrases that are totally outdated of course," Burns said with a laugh. She described the script as "wordy" and said the young cast had to have a dictionary on hand the first couple times through.

Contact Ana Maria Trujillo at 986-3084 or atrujillo@sfnewmexican.com.