"Corrie" closing

The producers of the Off-Broadway run of "My Name is Rachel Corrie" have just announced an early closing on December 17. True, that's still run 4 weeks longer than the originally announced November 19 date. But they got a little cocky, I guess, extending to December 30 after the first rush of post-opening sales.

Gee, do you think someone suggested the sales after December 17 might not be strong? While a pair of tickets to this paen to Palestinian activism seems like the perfect Chanaka present to me...maybe the holiday sales prognosis was not good.

I still haven't been able to learn exactly how well the show has been selling. (Box office figures for Off Broadway, unlike on, are not listed on Playbill and Variety.com.) Does the early closing indicate bad, or just tepid, word of mouth? Has the departure of original actress Megan Dodds after the extension lessened enthusiasm? One would assume it was selling well in November to warrant the extension--or is this just a labor of love producer Dina Hammerstein and did she decide at some point to just pour money into it for the prestige, or for the cause?

In any case, the New York chapter for this play is finally over, I guess.