WHO IS DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER?

Washington Irving (1783 - 1859) was an American short story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and is widely acknowledged as the “Father of American Literature.” Irving wrote under various pen names, creating vivid personalities for each moniker, even quoting his own pen names in another’s work. The most famous of these characters was Diedrich Knickerbocker.

In 1809, in what was arguably the first viral marketing campaign, Washington Irving placed a series of fake missing person ads in New York newspapers. A crusty Dutch historian named Diedrich Knickerbocker had disappeared, leaving behind a massive manuscript entitled, “A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty.” The story caught fire, the book was a success, and Irving’s fictional narrator eventually became an epithet for all New Yorkers.

Beginning with the creation of the world, and continuing to the foundation of America, “A History of New-York” forges an early national identity and mythos. But that’s not all that Knickerbocker supposedly wrote -- you may know him better from “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” -- two stories that have not only become classics of American literature, but have also become part of our collective folk history, too.

We are a nation with a tradition of writing our own history, choosing our own history, and creating more of our own stories as we continue to build the mythos of America. As artists, how do we present a constantly shifting story? How do we tie what we create in the theater to the world outside? How do we reconcile disparate influences and sources? How do we cope with constantly creating fleeting moments? Will creating our own myths preserve us or destroy us? Who made the goddamn coleslaw?