Theater Professionals Gather to Discuss "Rachel Corrie" Controversy
On Friday, April 7, 2006, seven concerned playwrights, directors, critics, and professors gathered on the stage of Barnard College’s Minor Latham Playhouse for a discussion of issues raised by the New York Theatre Workshop’s indefinite postponement of “My Name Is Rachel Corrie” – a one-woman show based on the writings of the 23-year-old American activist killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza in 2003 – that’s just had two sold-out runs in London. “A real moment of crisis for the New York theatre community” is how Garrett characterized NYTW Artistic Director Jim Nicola’s decision to postpone the controversial work, in light of local sensitivities after the Hamas election victory, with Solomon adding, “This is the third rail in American political discourse; it’s always a sensitive climate on this issue.”
Left to Right: Shawn-Marie Garrett (moderator), professor of theatre; Christopher Shinn, playwright; Kelly Stuart, professor of playwriting, Columbia; Alisa Solomon, journalist, theatre critic, and professor at the Columbia School of Journalism; Marvin A. Carlson, Sidney E. Cohn Distinguished Professor of Theatre and Comparative Literature, Ph.D. Program at the City University of New York; Gregory Mosher, theatre director and director of the Columbia University Arts Initiative; John Heilpern, theatre critic for the New York Observer, adjunct assistant professor at the Columbia School of the Arts
The conversation ranged from questions like: “If we are fearful to express ourselves in the biggest democracy on earth, then what? We live in the biggest multi-ethnic city in the world, and the theater is not reflecting that.” (Heilpern) and “The only thing to do is take a stand and do the work, or what’s the point? You’ve got to ask yourself, are you doing theater with actual consequences or are you just doing show business?” (Stuart)…to answers like: “Theatre gives us the opportunity to feel things we don’t want to feel and think things we don’t want to think, and when decisions are being made out of a concern for protecting the audience’s emotions, both the audience and the artist lose.” (Shinn) and “As a culture, most Americans see theater as entertainment. We don’t take it seriously as a place where we might see something worth thinking and talking about.” (Carlson).
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