Jordan E. Cooper (‘Ain’t No Mo’) on exploring ‘the mosaic of Blackness and queerness’ in America [Exclusive Video Interview]
“I’m one of those people who will always have to find something to laugh about,” reveals playwright and actor Jordan E. Cooper. During the summer of 2016, he was reeling from the killings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling within days of each other. So, in order to discover a bit of levity, he decided to find “the light” within this moment of darkness. An idea popped into Cooper’s head: what if every Black American decided they were finished dealing with racism and inequity and left the country? The script for the play “Ain’t No Mo’” started to flow out of him. Watch the exclusive video interview above.
In Cooper’s play, the United States government emails every Black citizen with the offer of a free plane ticket to Africa. A chance to escape racial oppression. A series of actors embody multiple roles, with each scene exploring how various personalities respond to the offer. “There was something really interesting to me about seeing all of these different people across the country dealing with the same issue,” explains Cooper. Each scene is like a short story, depicting how folks “react to the idea of freedom,” allowing the writer to explore “the mosaic of blackness and queerness” in our country.
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In addition to writing the script, Cooper also starred in “Ain’t No Mo’” as Peaches, a drag queen working the check in counter and helping people board the last flight to Africa. “I never wanted to play that role” he admits, noting at the time he conceived of the play, “I hadn’t even dealt with my own queerness.” It was director Stevie Walker-Webb who encouraged him to include a queer character in the show, the first such role Cooper had ever created. “I just put the blackest and gayest version of myself on paper. It was so freeing and so liberating,” says the author. “I was fighting it for so long…but it felt so good, it felt like jazz moving through my bones.”
His performance climaxes in a profound final scene where Peaches desperately tries to convince the immobile “Miss Bag” (a literal handbag which contains all of the history and contributions of Black people to American culture) to board the plane. Peaches, the lone queer figure of the story, is left behind as she tries to drag an entire culture on her back, and ultimately misses the last flight out of the U.S. “That final scene is a mountain to climb,” admits Cooper, “she feels some of the lowest pain that any human being could ever feel in that moment.” Peaches is left without a community and must contemplate, alone, what comes next.
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Luckily, Cooper felt the embrace of a community off stage, especially when it came to his campaign to save the production from closing. When “Ain’t No’ Mo’” was served an abrupt closing notice, Cooper sprang into action and the world heard his call. Social media was flooded with support, people across the country bought tickets for strangers to see the show, and celebrities bought out entire performances in order to grant the production an extension. Cooper is thankful for the unprecedented action which allowed more audiences to experience his play. That’s important, because most Broadway plays don’t look like “Ain’t No Mo’” in terms of style, or in the authentic experiences of Black and queer people that it presents. “I really do think that it represents everything that Broadway should, and could, be,” he explains, “The more we really expand what we think Broadway is…our audiences will start to look a lot more like the real world.”
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