Interview: Cassie Bradley on My Name is Rachel Corrie

Cassie Bradley, soon to appear alongside Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock in Practical Magic 2, returns to the stage this autumn in My Name Is Rachel Corrie at Greenwich Theatre. The show is compiled entirely from the diaries and emails of the American activist killed in Gaza in 2003. Ahead of opening night, Bradley spoke to Red Bus Londinium about the responsibility of speaking someone else’s real words, and what it takes to carry ninety minutes largely alone on stage.

On taking on someone else’s real words

Red Bus: The play is compiled entirely from Rachel Corrie’s own journals and emails rather than a scripted character. How does that change your approach as an actor, when there’s no dialogue invented for effect, only what a real person actually wrote?

Cassie Bradley: As an actor it’s always my intention to create characters grounded in truth that an audience can believe in, invest in and dream into. I love doing research and immersing myself in the world of any character I portray. I’ve used the same approach with this project: I’ve been reading Let Me Stand Alone: The Journals of Rachel Corrie, watching footage of Rachel and interviews with her family, reading eye witness testimonies and on a macro-level: researching the complex history of Israel-Palestine and examining the landscape of the US in the 80s/90s in Rachel’s formative years. This has all created a foundation to give life to Rachel’s incredible words.

Knowing Rachel’s story and knowing that these are her words, some deeply private and personal, written for a range of purposes – catharsis, communication, documentation, amusement, artistry, journalling thoughts and emotions – has created exquisite challenges in how we give them life. Her words have a weight and significance that can’t be ignored but Rachel’s variety of writing forms (edited together so brilliantly by Rickman and Viner) also grants immense freedom. It’s been an incredibly creative process.

On the weight of “timely”

Red Bus: Both you and the theatre have described this production as timely, given the news cycle. Does staging it now feel different to how you imagine it might have felt at another point in the past two decades? Is there a pressure that comes with an audience arriving already thinking about the headlines, rather than meeting Rachel fresh?

Cassie Bradley: Today’s fragmented global landscape of conflict and political instability means Rachel’s words and questions are so deeply relevant and deeply necessary. Minute to minute we are bombarded with images and stories depicting the human cost of conflict: through our smartphones, our screens and on 24 hour rolling news. Sometimes it feels easier to bury our fears, swallow our questions and numb our internal wrestlings than articulate them – purely in order to survive – to get us through the day. This show is urgent and necessary because it cracks open these internal struggles and gives voice to what so many of us are thinking and feeling beneath our instinct to survive. It feels important to be telling this story, now.

The audience’s knowledge of Rachel and her story will, of course, inflect their thoughts and create preconceptions. An audience always enters a theatre with ideas and imprints from their personal experiences. But the power of theatre is that it provides us with a space to experience; audiences have the opportunity to live and breathe Rachel’s thoughts, words, poems and dreams. In rehearsals we’ve focused on her deeply relatable human qualities; her passion, courage and intellect, her fears and anxieties, her wit, her endless questions… As an actor you can’t play a symbol, a metaphor or “an idea” of someone – you have to find the messy, complicated wrestlings that make them real – I hope our production gives audiences the space to experience Rachel in this way.

On solo performance

Red Bus: This is a one-woman show carrying ninety minutes largely alone on stage. What’s been the biggest technical or emotional challenge in finding the shape of that, and is there a moment in Rachel’s writing you keep coming back to in rehearsal?

Cassie Bradley: It’s been one of the most intense, exhilarating and challenging projects I’ve taken on so far. Solo performance demands so much – there’s the stamina, grit and energy needed to sustain a performance; the focus, care and empathy needed to share it as a live experience; the emotional rollercoaster you embark on as the lights go up and the duty of care and responsibility to hold and impart the story.

I’ve thought about solo performance as a form a lot throughout the rehearsal process and I keep coming back to the idea that actually, you’re never alone onstage, even as a solo performer – you need the audience, it’s a beautiful symbiotic relationship. There’s an amazing line in the play where Rachel writes:

“What if our aloneness isn’t a tragedy? What if our aloneness is what allows us to speak the truth without being afraid?… To experience the world as a dynamic presence – as a changeable, interactive thing?”

These words have been at the forefront of my mind as we’ve been making the piece.

On research versus the text

Red Bus: You’ll have read around Rachel Corrie’s life beyond the play itself, presumably, including how she’s been remembered since 2003. Was there anything you learned outside the script that changed how you read a line or a scene once you got back to Rickman and Viner’s edit?

Cassie Bradley: I love doing research and immersing myself in the world of any character I portray. I’ve been reading Let Me Stand Alone: The Journals of Rachel Corrie, watching footage of Rachel and interviews with her family, reading eye witness testimonies and on a macro-level: researching the complex history of Israel-Palestine and examining the landscape of the US in the 80s/90s in Rachel’s formative years. I love research in providing roots and foundations for a project but I think it’s also important to be able to let it go, trust your gut instincts and be able to creatively and impulsively respond to the writing.

Reading Rachel’s journals and poetry gave me an incredible insight into her headspace and her humour. Her wit, whimsy and the quirkiness of her brilliant mind gave me exciting re-entry points into the play.

On why this role now

Red Bus: You’ve moved between television, Shakespeare and now documentary theatre with a very particular real-world resonance, all in the same stretch of career. What drew you to this specific part at this point?

Cassie Bradley: When I read the script I had such a passionate gut reaction to it – I had an unshakable conviction that this story needed to be told and experienced again onstage (the original production debuted at The Royal Court in 2005).

Rachel’s writing is brilliant, beautiful and courageous; her story and words have an immediacy and relevance in today’s global landscape. I hope audiences will connect and engage with her deeply human hopes, fears, ideals and questions. The play foregrounds these qualities in us all.

This play constantly reminds me that there are no easy answers or solutions but that it’s fundamental that we ask questions, speak up about injustice, speak our truths and allow others the space to do the same. `

Booking Details

Tuesday 29 September – Saturday 17 October 2026
Greenwich Theatre Studio, Crooms Hill, London SE10 8ES
Tickets from £16.50
Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Guidance: 16+

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