My Name is Rachel Corrie

“Extraordinary power… Funny, passionate, bristling with idealism and luminously intelligent.” –TimeOut London

“You feel you have not just had a night at the theatre: you have encountered an extraordinary woman [in this] stunning account of one woman’s passionate response… Theatre can’t change the world. But what it can do, when it’s as good as this, is to send us out enriched by other people’s passionate concern.” –Guardian (London)

“An impassioned eulogy… It’s hard not to be impressed – and also somewhat frightened – by the description of her as a two-year-old looking across Capital Lake in Washington State and announcing, ‘This is the wide world, and I’m coming to it.’” –New York Times

On March 16, 2003, Rachel Corrie, a twenty-three-year-old American, was crushed to death by an Israeli Army bulldozer in Gaza as she was trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home. My Name is Rachel Corrie is a one-woman play composed from Rachel’s own journals, letters and emails – creating a portrait of a messy, articulate, Salvador Dali-loving chain-smoker (with a passion for the music of Pat Benatar), who left her home and school in Olympia, Washington, to work as an activist in the heart of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Since its Royal Court premiere (London), the piece has been surrounded by both controversy and impassioned proponents, and has raised an unprecedented call to support political work and the difficult discourse it creates.

ALAN RICKMAN is a British actor and director, who directed the London and New York productions of the play. KATHERINE VINER is an award-winning journalist and editor of the Guardian’s Weekend Magazine.