Theater's Contested Ground

It sure did. Playwrights Harold Pinter and Stephen Fry, and author Gillian Slovo, among others, signed a letter that appeared last month in the New York Times expressing "dismay" over Nicola's decision. Hundreds of supporters of Corrie and Palestinian rights showed up at Riverside Church on the Upper West Side recently for a night of readings. "Zionist pig" is among the more polite slurs Nicola has read in e-mails sent to the theater.

And the Guardian, a British newspaper, offered a link to a song about the affair, sung by none other than England's great socially conscious folk-rocker Billy Bragg, to the tune of Bob Dylan's "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll."

An artistic director of a New York theater

Canceled a play based on Rachel's writings

But she wasn't a bomber or a killer or fighter

But one who acted in the spirit of the Freedom Riders.

In the span of a mere 20 days, Nicola managed to annoy just about every constituency that cares about New York theater -- and a few that don't. As bad, the Workshop has unintentionally resurrected the idea that Jewish patrons constitute a super-powerful force in Manhattan that controls the cultural agenda there and will countenance a hearty debate about any topic except Israel.

It hasn't helped that Nicola won't say which advisers he talked to -- a blank spot in the narrative that all but invites the conspiracy-minded to infer the hand of a Jewish cabal. The most that Nicola will offer is that the rabbi of a board member expressed some concerns, as did an old friend.

"Once Jim names names, they're going to become part of the story," says Wayne Kabak, president of the Workshop's board and a senior executive at William Morris, the talent agency. "It's not fair to ask someone to comment on a play and then later tell them, 'By the way, that conversation is going to wind up in The Washington Post.' "

* * *

Nicola is an unlikely character to find in the center of this maelstrom. As the head of a theater best known for producing "Rent," and having handled his share of dramaturgical hot potatoes, including Tony Kushner's play about Afghanistan, "Homebody/Kabul," he's accustomed to taking risks. "James Nicola has been more successful at being fearless than most artistic directors in this town," says David Van Asselt, who heads Rattlestick, on off-Broadway theater. "That's part of what makes this story so striking."

"Corrie" had all the markings of a theatrical hand grenade. Even the details of Rachel's final minutes are feverishly debated. On March 16, 2003, her friends and allies say, she was deliberately run over by an Israeli soldier as she tried to prevent the razing of the house of a Palestinian pharmacist. The Israelis, after investigating, called her death "a regrettable accident" and concluded that Corrie wasn't protecting a home but interrupting a security operation to destroy tunnels used by militants to run guns from Egypt.