Rachel’s Words

By Andrew Gans and Robert Simonson
Originally published in Playbill

The acclaimed, and controversial, Royal Court Theatre production of My Name Is Rachel Corrie has finally found a New York home. It will begin performances at Off-Broadway’s Minetta Lane Theatre Oct. 15. The limited engagement will play 48 performances through Nov. 19.

The play, which is taken from the writings of the late American activist Rachel Corrie, will be directed by actor Alan Rickman, who, with journalist Katharine Viner, edited Corrie’s writings.

The play opened in April 2005 at London’s Royal Court Theatre and returned for an encore engagement in October 2005. It later played nine weeks at London’s Playhouse Theatre in spring 2006. The play was nominated for an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement.

The work became the subject of a heated debate this past spring when it was scheduled and then postponed at Off-Broadway’s New York Theatre Workshop. Both NYTW and the Royal Court were thrust into a press-statement war immediately after the decision to delay the work; the London-based company and the play’s creators accusing the New York company of censorship while the New York troupe stating it merely sought to present the work in a climate suitable for the volatile work.

By Robert Simonson
03 Jul 2006
The acclaimed, and controversial historical solo play My Name Is Rachel Corrie will be published in the U.S. by TCG in September.

The Royal Court Theatre production of My Name Is Rachel Corrie will begin performances at Off-Broadway’s Minetta Lane Theatre Oct. 15. The limited engagement will play 48 performances through Nov. 19.

The play, which is taken from the writings of the late American activist Rachel Corrie, will be directed by actor Alan Rickman, who, with journalist Katharine Viner, edited Corrie’s writings.

The TCG printing will run 64 pages and is priced at $12.95.

The play opened in April 2005 at London’s Royal Court Theatre and returned for an encore engagement in October 2005. It later played nine weeks at London’s Playhouse Theatre in spring 2006. The play was nominated for an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement.

A Wall Runs Through It: One Palestinian Family’s Tale
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

12 July 2006
The New York Times

With its contemplative tone and haunting images, ‘’The Color of Olives'’ may be the most peaceful documentary ever to arrive from a war zone. Filmed about 15 miles from Tel Aviv in Masha, a Palestinian village disrupted by the wall Israel is building on the West Bank, the movie observes an ordinary Palestinian family living under extraordinary conditions.

Refusing to leave land that has been in his family for generations, Hani Amer — along with his wife, Monira, and their six surviving children — literally lives surrounded by the wall. A military road, a checkpoint and electrified fences separate the family home from the fields of oranges, olives and flowers they used to sell in Masha’s now abandoned garden markets. Each day Hani and the children patiently wait for soldiers to unlock the gate and allow them to go to work and school. Sometimes they wait a very long time.

Volunteer worker killed in Gaza Strip inspires play

Controversial work based on Rachel Corrie’s writings will be staged at World Urban Festival
Kevin Griffin
Vancouver Sun

Wednesday, June 21, 2006
A little more than three years ago, a young woman named Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer while defending a Palestinian home from destruction in the Gaza Strip.

Corrie, a 23-year-old from Olympia, Wash., was a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian-led group dedicated to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land through non-violent direct action.

Her death could have been nothing more than a tragic but fleeting news story in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But it became much more lasting and significant because of the powerful writing Corrie left behind, which has been turned into a controversial play being staged during Earth: The World Urban Festival, the cultural and artistic component to the UN’s World Urban Forum in Vancouver.

Called My Name is Rachel Corrie, the work will receive two staged readings at the festival by 10 non-professional actors. The cast includes two 11-year-olds, a Japanese-Canadian in his 60s, a former International Solidarity Movement activist and Canadians of Christian, Jewish and Muslim heritage.

New York Times
June 22, 2006
Play About Gaza Death to Reach New York

By Campbell Robertson
After an Off Broadway production was derailed, resulting in a theatrical uproar, “My Name Is Rachel Corrie,” the solo show about an American demonstrator for Palestinian rights who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in the Gaza Strip, has found another New York theater.

Pam Pariseau and Dena Hammerstein, partners in James Hammerstein Productions, are bringing the play, critically acclaimed in London, to the Minetta Lane Theater in Greenwich Village. Previews are to begin on Oct. 5, with an opening scheduled for Oct. 15. The play is to run for 48 performances, closing on Nov. 19.

“We both saw the play and both responded to it very strongly,” Ms. Hammerstein said in a telephone interview yesterday. “We identified with the material in terms of being mothers and were struck by the production and the theatricality.”

Ms. Hammerstein, a daughter-in-law of Oscar Hammerstein II, is a longtime friend of the actor Alan Rickman, who created the play with Katharine Viner, an editor for The Guardian, the London newspaper. They put the play together from Ms. Corrie’s journal entries and e-mail messages before her death in March 2003. It ran for two seasons at the Royal Court Theater in London.

By Catherine Foster, Globe Staff
Published by the Boston Globe

In March 2003, Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old peace activist from Olympia, Wash., was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer while trying to protect the home of a Palestinian doctor and his family from demolition. The International Solidarity Movement, for whom Corrie had volunteered, claimed she was run over intentionally. The Israeli Defense Forces said she was killed by falling debris.

“The Words of Rachel Corrie,” a play based on a series of e-mails she sent to her family, opens Tuesday at the Provincetown Fringe Festival. It comes after controversy about another play, “My Name Is Rachel Corrie,” a production of which the New York Theatre Workshop postponed because of political concerns.

Deborah Peabody, director and creator of “The Words of Rachel Corrie,” explained to the Globe recently via e-mail how the show came together.

What’s the back story of this play?

I heard about the death of Rachel Corrie at about the time it happened via Internet news. [Another] play, “My Name Is Rachel Corrie,” a compilation of journal entries and e-mails from Rachel, had two successful runs in London. I did not know of the play until it was scheduled to come to New York. A couple of friends told me about it, including Marj Conn, the producer of the Provincetown Fringe Festival, for whom I directed Eve Ensler’s “Necessary Targets” last year.

A group of people read Rachel’s emails in Grosvenor Square in London in front of the U.S. Embassy and in front of the British Parliament on March 16, 2006, the third anniversary of Rachel’s death.

The Optative Theatrical Laboratories in Montreal, Canada, part of the Theaters Against War (THAW) network, performed dramatic readings of Rachel’s emails as well as writings about the controversy of the New York Theater Workshops cancellation of the play.

Reading Rachel: A Benefit for the Rachel Corrie Foundation

Performed by Rachel Kobasa and Marissa Hutton
Adaptation by Stephen Kobasa

Friday, April 21, 2006
7:30 p.m.
The People’s Center
37 Howe Street
New Haven, CT

A First Friday Cafe Event

The performance of “Reading Rachel” an adaptation from the letters of Rachel Corrie, collected $560 in donations to the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice. The evening concluded with a moving appreciation of Rachel from Afif Safieh, Head of the PLO MIssion to the United States, who was in attendance, and a message of support from Kathleen Chalfant, the noted actress, who is presently appearing at the Yale Repertory Theatre.

Thanks to Richard Hill, Anne Somsel, Gary Gralton, Jeff Fuller, Frank Panzarella, Joelle Fishman, Mazin Qumsiyeh, Stan Heller, Christopher Arnott and all the audience.

Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer on March 16, 2003. She was working with others trying to protect the home of a Palestinian pharmacist from demolition in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Palestine. “My Name is Rachel Corrie” - a play based entirely on the writings that Rachel left behind - was scheduled to open at the New York Theatre Workshop on March 22nd, but it has been postponed indefinitely - and unjustifiably. This reading from Rachel’s correspondence was presented in concert with the “Rachel’s Words” initiative- made up of a broad spectrum of groups and individuals who believe that her message of human rights and justice should be heard.

Hope Among The Chaos Women Share Challenges Of Daily Life In The Gaza
Strip

By Katie Warchut

Published on 6/8/2006

Groton — We hear the tanks, said 23-year-old Fida Qishta. At least 20 extended family members were huddled in a room of her house in Gaza. Finally, a neighbor came by to state the obvious: “They’re trying to destroy your house.”

We just want one minute to be safe, Qishta said. “Maybe after a month, but not today,” she thought.

It was June 21, 2004, when her house was turned into rubble.

Qishta took long pauses, careful with her sometimes halting English, as she told her story to a small group of women at the Islamic Center of New London Wednesday in Groton.

A few were Muslim; others were members of the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme who visited Israel and its occupied territories last year.

Laila El-Haddad, a Palestinian mother and journalist who writes for Aljazeera.net, joined Qishta in describing the challenges of women living in Gaza, who are prevented from traveling in and out of the tiny territory.