My Name is Rachel Corrie is based on Rachel's diaries, as well as journals and e-mails she wrote while in Palestine in 2003. Edited by British actor Alan Rickman and Guardian editor Katharine Viner, the play enjoyed great success in London when it opened at the Royal Court Theatre in April 2005 and when it returned for an encore engagement in October 2005. In the spring of 2006, after the New York Theater Workshop halted production amidst controversy, the play moved to London’s West End for nine weeks at the Playhouse Theatre and also reached prominent summer theater festivals in Galway and Edinburgh. In addition to the Best Actress award, the play received the 2006 London Theatregoers' Choice Award for Best Play.

The play was eventually produced in New York at a different venue, the Minetta Lane Theatre. A planned 2007 production at Toronto's Canstage was also cancelled, and My Name Is Rachel Corrie was seen instead at that city's Theatre PANIK.

Diane Borger, general manager of The Royal Court Theatre in London said, "It has been a full time job to handle the number of requests that have come my way to produce this play around the world, even more so following the success of the New York production. It is a testament to the power and truth of this play that inquiries have come in from both Israel and Palestine. That is everything that Rachel Corrie was about."

Of the New York production, USA Today critic Elysa Gardner wrote that My Name is Rachel Corrie is "Deeply, authentically human. If Rachel Corrie's views provoke emotions and inspire debate, isn't that part of the purpose of art?"

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