About The Rejection Show

‘REJECTED: TALES OF THE FAILED, DUMPED & CANCELED’ IS COMING SOON!

New Rejection Show Website coming soon!  Featuring YOUR rejected material!

THE REJECTION SHOW is a live comedic event that embraces the rejected and “turned down” material of well-known and up and coming writers, comedians, cartoonists, artists, filmmakers, TV personalities and other artistic types who display their creative “failures” live on stage.  It is a hilarious compilation of rejected material (personal and professional) and the stories that go with them.

For every piece of accepted material, there are hundreds of pieces of rejected material -and unique, often hysterical, stories that go along with them.  What are the reasons that something so good can be overlooked?  What were they thinking when they presented something so horrible? The Rejection Show offers a humorous and cathartic insider look at what it takes to deal with and overcome rejection, in industries where rejection heavily outweighs acceptance.  The Rejection Show also features personal stories of rejection told through break-up letters, love letters, rejection-related diary entries, hate mail and negative reviews. In hearing these stories and getting a chance to see the rejected material first-hand, the audience is brought into a world that is usually kept behind closed doors, allowing them to gain entertaining, comedic and thought-provoking insights into the process of attempting to achieve acceptance.

THE REJECTION SHOW was created by comedian and writer Jon Friedman in the summer of 2003 after a string of his own personal and creative rejections left him wanting to create a forum for ‘turned down’ material.  The Rejection Show began in a small black box theater in Manhattan in August 2003 to a small, curious crowd.  In the months that followed, the show’s reputation and popularity grew through word of mouth and repeat ticket buyers.  In late 2004, when it was no longer able to fit its growing audiences into its original theater space, The Rejection Show moved to the much larger Performance Space 122.  Not long after its humble beginnings, various media outlets took notice of the uniquely entertaining nature of the show, and it has since been written about and featured in various formats all over the world.  Today, The Rejection Show travels around to various venues to support its ever-growing popularity and wide range of audiences, which continue to grow because of the universal nature of rejection and the shared notion that we all seek unique ways to deal with and overcome failure and hardships.

In October 2007 “The Rejection Show” kicked off its fifth season at The Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in NYC.  The Rejection Show will release its first official book with Villard (Random House) titled, “REJECTED" to be edited by Rejection Show creator Jon Friedman in 2009.

See The Rejection Show past performers

Past Co-Producers
Jon Bulette
Adam Cole-Kelly
Matt Diffee
Todd Rosenberg

Photo credit: Dan Rhatigan