Rachel’s Words

Drama students students perform reading at Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest

By Karen Hartwell, ICPR member

On March 30, the Interfaith Community for Palestinian Rights (ICPR) in Austin, Texas, approached St. Edward’s University Drama Department to ask if their students would be interested in performing Rachel’s Words as part of a Palestinian film festival. The Artistic Director of the Mary Moody Northen Theatre and member of the drama faculty, made inquiries, and senior Dana Dixon was selected to direct four other students as readers. The practices were challenging for the students, who had little previous knowledge of the embattled Palestine or of Rachel Corrie.

Their performance followed a clip from the film “The Killing Zone” ending with Rachel Corrie’s death. The director did an excellent job of staging the performance. The readers, dressed in black shirts and jeans and wearing a green Rachel Corrie bracelet, moved toward and away from one another as they alternately read, creating a shared identity among them as Rachel. For the email from the IDF refuser, they stood soldier-like at attention. At the end of Rachel’s last email to her father, they came together, clasped hands as they quietly said in unison, “Rachel.” An audience of about 50 were quite touched, many with tears in their eyes. Two people later talked with the students about performing the readings again at their churches.

Olympia could become sister-city to Rafah on Gaza Strip

Associated Press

Last updated: Monday, April 16th, 2007 07:42:08 AM

OLYMPIA — The Olympia City Council will hold a public hearing Tuesday to consider a sister-city relationship with the Palestinian city of Rafah on the Gaza Strip.

The idea originated with Rachel Corrie, an Olympia activist who was killed in 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer.

The Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project has pursued the sister-city affiliation for four years. It would cost the city nothing. The organization would fund sister-city cultural and trade exchanges.

Opponents say choosing Rafah as a sister city amounts to taking the Palestinian side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Corrie was The Evergreen State College student killed while standing in front of a Palestinian home to try to protect it from demolition.

Sunday, April 08, 2007

An Open Letter From THAW

An Open Letter Concerning the Recent Occurrences of Censorship

Last month a group of public high school students in Wilton Connecticut were told by their principal that they could not perform “Voices in Conflict,” a play they wrote based on the words of soldiers serving in Iraq because it could be construed as “anti-war” and might upset the audience. Principal Timothy Canty went on to suggest that the students didn’t “know enough” and didn’t have the right to speak about the war. The play includes the words of a 19 year old Wilton graduate recently killed in Iraq.

Within the same month at John Jay High School in Lewisboro, NY, three student actors were suspended because they dared to use the word ‘vagina’ in their reading of the critically acclaimed play, “The Vagina Monologues.” Their principal, Richard Leprine, said the girls were punished because they had “disobeyed orders” in speaking the word. “The Vagina Monologues” often draws criticism from conservative groups where it is performed.

Putting an American face on Palestinian aspirations

Seattle Times
April 4

My first reaction to the death of Rachel Corrie was to sigh at the damfoolishness of a 23-year-old from Olympia who would place her body in the way of the Israeli army. On March 16, 2003, in Rafah, Palestine, an Israeli soldier drove his bulldozer over her and crushed her.

I think of the Chinese man who blocked the column of tanks in Beijing on June 4, 1989. That man created an image and vanished, never leaving his face. Rachel left her face.

In “My Name Is Rachel Corrie,” now playing at the Seattle Repertory Theatre, actress Marya Sea Kaminski brings Rachel to life in a 90-minute monologue extracted solely from Rachel’s diary and e-mails. Here is The Evergreen State College idealist, who declares, “I am building the world myself and putting new hats on everybody.”

The 9/11 attacks have provided a focus to her fervor. She is drawn to the Palestinians. She imbibes Arabic. Feeling that she must join in, she goes to Gaza to witness the Israeli occupation.

Theater won’t stage controversial drama

A South Florida theater dropped a controversial play about an American activist killed in the Gaza Strip.

BY CHRISTINE DOLEN

cdolen@MiamiHerald.com

My Name Is Rachel Corrie, the controversial play about a young American activist who died after she was run over by an Israeli-operated bulldozer in the Gaza Strip, has been pulled from the lineup at Plantation’s Mosaic Theatre after protests from some of the theater’s subscribers and outside individuals.

Mosaic, a professional company that presents its shows in a black-box theater space at the private American Heritage School, had planned to offer the one-woman Rachel Corrie in repertory with Heather Raffo’s 9 Parts of Desire, a solo show about Iraqi women.

But Mosaic’s board of directors agreed to drop the play after phone calls, e-mails and comments on a special Rachel Corrie blog — which has now been removed from the company’s website — made it clear that an impassioned, vocal minority strongly objected to the play. There have been no such complaints about Raffo’s play, which actress Pilar Uribe will perform April 18 through May 13.