Rachel’s Words

Story of activist killed in Gaza,
U of T reading by invitation only

by RICHARD OUZOUNIAN
Published in the Toronto Star

The script of My Name is Rachel Corrie, a controversial play about the 23-year-old American activist who died in Gaza during a political demonstration in 2003, received a private reading without incident at Hart House on the University of Toronto campus Sunday night.

“It was successful,” said Paul Leishman, who directed the reading with Marya Delver playing Corrie, “because people sat back and really listened to Rachel’s story.”

While the play ran successfully in London for many months, a proposed production at the New York Theatre Workshop was cancelled shortly before its opening, because of fears that it would exacerbate what the theatre’s director, James Nicola, called “an edgy situation” within the Jewish community.

This cancellation sparked a worldwide controversy, with heated voices being raised on both sides.

In light of that reaction, the Toronto organizers decided to make Sunday night’s reading by invitation only.

The end result was what Leishman characterizes as “a very civilized event where the play was really heard.” The audience of about 50 were “from all constituencies, which was exactly what we had planned.”

“This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don’t think it’s an extremist thing to do anymore. I still want to dance around to Pat Benetar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop.”

Rachel Corrie from Rafah, February 27, 2003

Peace Works Conference

Cultivating a Just and Enduring Peace for the People of Palestine and Israel
April 22-23, 2006
South Puget Sound Community College, Olympia, Washington

Rachel Corrie was killed while nonviolently protecting the home of two Palestinian families in Gaza from demolition. In her honor and memory, the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice will realize one of its dreams in April when it inaugurates Peace Works, an annual lecture/conference to provide a continuing forum for exploring the meaning and practice of justice and peace as they affect the social, economic, political, environmental, and spiritual aspects of people’s lives.

With a two-day conference, and special pre-conference activities and events, Peace Works 2006 will focus on the struggle in Palestine and Israel. Events in the Middle East are unfolding at a dizzying pace with confusion about what they mean and what can and should be done about them.

“This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don’t think it’s an extremist thing to do anymore. I still want to dance around to Pat Benetar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop.”

Rachel Corrie from Rafah, February 27, 2003

Peace Works Conference

Cultivating a Just and Enduring Peace for the People of Palestine and Israel
April 22-23, 2006
South Puget Sound Community College, Olympia, Washington

Rachel Corrie was killed while nonviolently protecting the home of two Palestinian families in Gaza from demolition. In her honor and memory, the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice will realize one of its dreams in April when it inaugurates Peace Works, an annual lecture/conference to provide a continuing forum for exploring the meaning and practice of justice and peace as they affect the social, economic, political, environmental, and spiritual aspects of people’s lives.

With a two-day conference, and special pre-conference activities and events, Peace Works 2006 will focus on the struggle in Palestine and Israel. Events in the Middle East are unfolding at a dizzying pace with confusion about what they mean and what can and should be done about them.

by Richard Ouzounian
Published in the Toronto Star

Cancelled in New York, the first Toronto reading of My Name Is Rachel Corrie is being held at a secret location.

Rachel Corrie was born in Washington, killed in the Gaza Strip, praised in London and censored in Manhattan.

Now she’s being forced to go underground in Toronto.

My Name Is Rachel Corrie is a play based on the life and words of the 23-year-old American activist who died in Gaza on March 16, 2003, after an incident involving an Israeli Defence Forces bulldozer.

Corrie’s supporters claim she was run over deliberately during the course of a peaceful political demonstration. Those on the opposing side insist the bulldozer driver couldn’t see her and it was simply an accident.

The New York production of the play was recently cancelled, because of fears that its pro-Palestinian stance would upset the Jewish community at a difficult political time.

This decision provoked a worldwide debate that has become so heated it has become necessary to keep secret the exact location of a simple reading of the script for 50 people at the University of Toronto Sunday night.

“This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don’t think it’s an extremist thing to do anymore. I still want to dance around to Pat Benetar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop.”

Rachel Corrie from Rafah, February 27, 2003

Peace Works Conference

Cultivating a Just and Enduring Peace for the People of Palestine and Israel
April 22-23, 2006
South Puget Sound Community College, Olympia, Washington

Rachel Corrie was killed while nonviolently protecting the home of two Palestinian families in Gaza from demolition. In her honor and memory, the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice will realize one of its dreams in April when it inaugurates Peace Works, an annual lecture/conference to provide a continuing forum for exploring the meaning and practice of justice and peace as they affect the social, economic, political, environmental, and spiritual aspects of people’s lives.

With a two-day conference, and special pre-conference activities and events, Peace Works 2006 will focus on the struggle in Palestine and Israel. Events in the Middle East are unfolding at a dizzying pace with confusion about what they mean and what can and should be done about them.

“This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don’t think it’s an extremist thing to do anymore. I still want to dance around to Pat Benetar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop.”

Rachel Corrie from Rafah, February 27, 2003

Peace Works Conference

Cultivating a Just and Enduring Peace for the People of Palestine and Israel
April 22-23, 2006
South Puget Sound Community College, Olympia, Washington

Rachel Corrie was killed while nonviolently protecting the home of two Palestinian families in Gaza from demolition. In her honor and memory, the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice will realize one of its dreams in April when it inaugurates Peace Works, an annual lecture/conference to provide a continuing forum for exploring the meaning and practice of justice and peace as they affect the social, economic, political, environmental, and spiritual aspects of people’s lives.

With a two-day conference, and special pre-conference activities and events, Peace Works 2006 will focus on the struggle in Palestine and Israel. Events in the Middle East are unfolding at a dizzying pace with confusion about what they mean and what can and should be done about them.

Presented by THAW in association with NoPassport*
Moderated by Jason Grote, Sophia Skiles and Caridad Svich
An arts evening devoted to statements and writings in favor of freedom of expression.

Time: 8 pm
Where: The Culture Project at 45 Bleecker Street, NYC
Subways: 6 to Bleecker, B/D/F/V to Broadway/Lafayette
This event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP by sending an email message to: thawfollies@yahoo.com

On Patriot’s Day, the Culture Project hosts an evening of monologues, songs, readings, poetry, speeches, statements penned by the likes of Brecht, Athol Fugard, Vaclav Havel, Arthur Miller, Naomi Wallace, Hannah Arendt, MLK, Subcommandante Marcos, Wallace Shawn and many more, in support of freedom of expression and its unique role in the arts.

Scheduled to participate are:
Joanne Pottlitzer, a freelance playwright, theater producer/director and translator, has produced many Latin American plays in New York and is the winner of two Obie Awards. She will be reading a “U.S. presidential campaign speech” from the Chilean play “Hojas de Parra” [Parra’s Pages] by Jaime Vadell and José Manuel Salcedo, in cooperation with Nicanor Parra. The play was written in 1977 and was performed for two weeks before the performance tent was firebombed by the military government.

By Charles McNulty
Published by the Los Angeles Times

The fate of ‘Rachel Corrie’ prompts a question: Where will theater that takes an unpopular stand find a home?

Vanessa Redgrave describes it as the “blacklisting of a dead girl and her diaries.” Harold Pinter says it’s nothing less than the “suppression of dissent and truth.” And Tony Kushner professes to be “baffled” by the attempts to justify what has been seen as egregious self-censorship.

The hullabaloo concerns New York Theatre Workshop’s postponement of “My Name Is Rachel Corrie,” the play based on e-mails and letters of the 23-year-old American student who was killed in 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer while protesting the leveling of Palestinian homes on the Gaza Strip.

It’s no surprise that the incident has provoked widespread condemnation from left-leaning critics and artists in the U.S. and abroad. But now that we’re all beginning to catch our breaths (and recover our voices), the time has come to more calmly reflect on our theater’s willingness to steer the public dialogue in directions that it may otherwise be reluctant to venture in.

by Kathleen Chalfant, Sally Eberhardt, Jen Marlowe, Ann Petter, Tom Wallace, Dave Reed

Since our event on March 22nd, Rachel’s Words has received many great suggestions about “where do we go from here.” One idea is to encourage contact with theater groups in the Occupied Territories. The Jenin Freedom Theatre was not able to participate in our event via video due to army closure. Recent Israeli Military Operations (article below) in Aida Camp illustrates some of the difficulties experienced by theaters/cultural institutions trying to operate under occupation. It makes the cancellation of the play “My Name is Rachel Corrie” in New York look small by comparison but underscores its real significance. Rachel was encouraging an Olympia/Rafah sister city project when she was killed. We strongly encourage sister theater projects, and hope to promote an ongoing cultural exchange that will help foster dialog, creativity, and help break through the isolation and silencing experienced by so many institutions.

Recent Israeli Military Operations in Aida Camp
April 9th, 2006
Abdel Fattah Abu-Srour, PhD

(Dr. Abdel Fattah Abu-Srour is the Director of the Al Rowwad Children’s Theatre and Cultural Center, whose stated mission among other things is “to connect children with other children of their age around the world.” Al Rowwad is located in the Aida Refugee Camp in Bethlehem which is under the nominal support of UNRWA.

By Ray Bennett
Published by the Hollywood Reporter

One of the most disturbing things about “My Name Is Rachel Corrie,” the Royal Court play based on the journals and e-mails of a young American who died in Palestine for no apparent reason, is that it has yet to be seen in the United States.

The one-woman production starring Megan Dodds was on its way to the New York Theater Workshop last month when it derailed. Instead, it’s in a sold-out run at London’s Playhouse Theater, directed, as it was at the Royal Court, by actor Alan Rickman, who fashioned the play with journalist Katharine Viner.

Rachel Corrie was a seriously earnest young woman from the Pacific Northwest who was born seeking a cause. At 10, she made a speech pleading on behalf of the poor at her school’s fifth-grade news conference on world hunger, and at 23 she left to take a look at the sharp end of where her country’s tax dollars were spent on things military.

She went to the Palestinian territories with an international goodwill movement, and there she died, crushed by a U.S.-made bulldozer being used by Israeli forces that were knocking down Palestinian homes.