Even famous, powerful people face rejection.
“Rejection can be brutal,” Paul Stetler, founder of Letters Aloud, told a group of Iola and Moran high school students Friday morning.
“It creates self-doubt, anxiety and emotional turmoil. It’s hard to stay true to one’s vision when others don’t see the value of what you’re offering.”
Letters Aloud is a national performing arts program with actors who read interesting and historic letters. The group offered two performances at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center.
The first brought Iola High School and Marmaton Valley High School students to hear “Thanks But No Thanks: The Greatest Rejection Letters Ever.”
The second, on Friday evening, brought a small crowd of about 50 to hear “The Road to Fame/Before They Were Famous.” In that presentation, letters offered intimate insights about famous entertainers, performers, leaders, athletes, writers and others, starting with their pursuit of fame to interactions after they hit it big. The evening event, though, was marred when a member of the audience made comments with racial undertones to a Black performer. (More on that later.)
MOST OF US face rejection at one point or another, the performers noted.
Or as MAD Magazine editor Al Feldsteing wrote: “Sorry, but we’ve got bad news! You’ve been rejected! Don’t take this personally though. All of us feel rejected at one time or another. At least, that’s what our group therapist tells us here at MAD. He says we shouldn’t worry about it. So that should be your attitude: ‘What, me worry?’”
As Stetler noted, reading letters aloud “creates a unique intimacy” that brings a sense of humanity to the written word. The letters were accompanied by an accordion player, who played songs such as Beck’s “Loser” after a particularly harsh rejection or relevant songs from musicians such as Madonna and movies such as Star Wars.
Many of the letters were humorous. Some illustrated changing times.
In 1938, a woman named Mary Ford applied for a job as an animator at Disney Studios. The rejection letter came beautifully illustrated and was signed by a woman, who said: “Women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen, as that work is performed entirely by young men. For this reason, girls are not considered for the training school.”
Four years later, the cast explained, Disney hired its first female animator. Today, the chief creative officer is a woman who wrote and directed “Frozen.”
In 1959, an honor student applied to a prestigious medical school at Atlanta’s Emory University. The rejection letter he received said, “I am sorry I must write you that we are not authorized to consider for admission a member of the Negro race. I regret that we cannot help.”
The student was accepted to Loyola University’s medical school and became a gynecologist and obstetrician in Atlanta. When the doctor retired, his son posted the rejection letter on social media. It went viral.
Sixty years later, the physician received an apology letter: “Your rejection letter serves as a somber reminder that generations of talented young men and women were denied educational opportunities because of their race, and our society was denied their full potential.”
Several letters focused on college students, particularly rejection from college admissions departments.
At the end of the event, students talked about their favorite letters. One student talked about a rejection letter sent by KFC to a job-seeker, filled with puns such as “We’re clucking delighted you’re keen to join our flock. However, at this moment in time, your skills aren’t the secret recipe.”
Another appreciated a college student’s humor when she wrote a rejection letter to Duke University in 2015, after her admission application was rejected: “After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me admission in the fall 2015 freshman class. This year, I have been fortunate enough to receive rejection letters from the best and brightest universities in the country. However, despite Duke’s outstanding success in rejecting previous applicants, you simply did not meet my qualifications. Therefore, I will be attending Duke’s 2015 freshman class.”
She ultimately was accepted to another college.
THE EVENING performance continued with similar stories, starting with a humorous plea from actor Tom Hanks asking the director of the movie “The Sting,” to “discover” him.
“My looks are not stunning. I am not built like a Greek God, and I can’t even grow a mustache, but I figure if people will pay to see certain films … they will pay to see me.”
Other famous actors were humorously and poignantly captured in their own words, including Sydney Poitier asking President Roosevelt for $100 so he could return to the Bahamas: “…I miss my home in the Caribbean. I cannot seem to get myself organized properly here in America, especially in the cold weather…”
Stetler noted it turned out to be a blessing in disguise that Poitier’s request went unfulfilled, as he would go on to become the first Black actor to win an Academy Award in 1964.
Other luminaries included Andy Warhol, Bruce Lee, Bruce Springsteen, Emily Dickinson, Dorothy Parker, F. Scott Fitzgerald, David Bowie, Monty Python, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marilyn Monroe, Gene Wilder, E.B. White and Oprah Winfrey.
Baseball legend Jackie Robinson wrote many letters, including to President Dwight Eisenhower asking for support on Civil Rights. The program also offered an emotional recording of former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher and Civil Rights advocate Dock Ellis reading a letter Robinson wrote to him in 1970. Ellis broke down in tears while reading the letter: “There will be times when you will ask yourself is it worth it all? I can only say, Dock, it is, and even though you will want to yield in the long run, your own feeling about yourself will be most important.”
During a short discussion with members of the audience, a woman said the recording of Ellis reading Robinson’s letter was the most memorable part of the evening for her.
Then, a man in the audience stood and asked actor Claudine Mboligikpelani Nako how to pronounce her middle name. Nako did so, to which the audience member responded, “You’re not from around here, are you?”
“I’m from Wyoming, so I’m from the Midwest,” she answered.
To avoid an uncomfortable silence, Stetler quickly moved on to the next question, directed at the cast: “What’s your favorite letter?”
Nako, obviously reacting to the audience member’s comments about her ethnic-sounding name, said: “Tonight I’m reminded of Jackie Robinson’s letter.” She talked about the struggle for Civil Rights and called out “how we respond to institutional and casual racism.” She encouraged the audience to speak out when they see and hear injustice.
“That’s what I’m reflecting on tonight, especially.”
The audience clapped but otherwise did not address the incident, and the program ended soon after.
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