We are doing the Ledgend of Sleepy Hollow and I was wondering if any of you had sugestions on how to make a realistic headless horseman?  Also the director wanted to know if a live horse would be safe on stage. I told her i didn't think so, but that I would look into it.  Am I the only one that thinks that's nuts???/

What the costume does is creates a set a fake shoulders on top of the actor's real shoulders and then the cape goes on top of that.  There is also a thin bit of fabric built into the "shirt" part of the costume that allows the actor to see.  The one we bought wasn't exactly the best in terms of quality, but you get what you pay for.  And you can hide some of the imperfections in the costume by lighting the scene very dark and spooky.  We used lots of strong backlight so things were really in silhoette for those moments with the horsemen.

 

As far as the horse, unless you have a pooper scooper following the horseman around I wouldn't mess with it, and like Tony said a full sized horse would probably really damage your stage.

 

2.) Or tape the scene in silhouette and project that on a scrim or screen.

 

3.) Use something like a sawhorse/ step ladder structure for the actor to sit on ...cut a horse silhouette shape to be in front of the structure (do it from the front view of the horse, not side view to hide the structure that the horseman actor is sitting on) voila, instant silhouette.  Tip for silhouette screen, either use the spandex that silhouette screens in clubs are made from or a Chameleon scrim (don't use sharkstooth) and instead of the usual strong light source that exaggerates the silhouette do this technique:  Light the back wall, and place actor on "horse" between back wall and scrim.  Now the silhouette will appear normal and you won't have blinded your audience with strong light source.  If you really want it cool, rig the horse cut out head to be hinged so it moves--allowing the horseman to 'toss' the horse's head on cue to a whinny!

 

4.)Or if you want the silhouette, you could set up a silhouette screen with a realistic horse silhouette painted opaquely on it (front or back side) so the horse isn't really behind the screen...but the actor is.  Since the part of the actor that moves is at the top of the screen you use that part as a silhouette screen placing a strong light on the wall behind his head (Maybe the full moon?)  SInce the light is dark near the horse's hooves the detail there is less important letting you hide the little step ladder you have the horseman on.