Seattle-based Letters Aloud will perform Tuesday night at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center. The group of reality theater actors formed in 2013 with the mission of connecting modern audiences to an endangered form of communication — the handwritten letter.
Tuesday night’s show is themed “fame.” On a Juneau Afternoon, Letters Aloud actor Todd Beadle read an unusual appeal from a young Sidney Poitier.
Dear President Roosevelt,
My name is Sidney Poitier and I am here in the United States in New York City. I am from the Bahamas. I would like to go back to the Bahamas but I don’t have the money. I would like to borrow from you $100. I will send it back to you when I get to the Bahamas. I miss my mother and father and I miss my brothers and sisters and I miss my home in the Caribbean. I cannot seem to get myself organized properly here in America, especially in the cold weather, and I am therefore asking you as an American citizen if you will loan me $100 to get back home. I will send it back to you and I would certainly appreciate it very much.
Your fellow American,
Sidney Poitier
Letters from Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Andy Warhol will also be read and accompanied by a slideshow. Curator Paul Morgan Stetler says the project gives listeners unique insight into the lives of heroes and celebrities of the past.
“It’s like a time travel to a certain degree — you feel like you’re really connecting to these people in a way that you wouldn’t normally have access to.” Stetler said.
The live performance begins 7 p.m. Tuesday at the JACC.
