Interview: Playwright, Actor and Producer Jordan E. Cooper Talks AIN'T NO MO' and More

Actor, playwright, producer, and director Jordan E. Cooper is on a roll. The Emmy-nominated television sitcom “The Ms. Pat Show,” which he created, co-executive produces and directs, premiered on BET+ in 2021 and is now in its fifth season on the streaming service. His scathing satire “Ain’t No Mo’” ran on Broadway in November and December 2022 and earned six 2023 Tony Award nominations – including Best Play and Best Featured Actor for Cooper – making him the youngest Black American playwright on Broadway and the youngest Black American playwright ever nominated for a Tony.

He has a featured role in the upcoming film “Freakier Friday,” starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, set for wide release in August. And he’s at work on his next play, to be titled “Oh, Happy Day!”

Through February 8 at the Roberts Theatre, Boston Center for the Arts, “Ain’t No Mo’” – written as a series of comedic vignettes that involve the U.S. government deciding to “solve racism” by making free one-way flights to Africa available to all Black Americans – is being given a sensational co-production by SpeakEasy Stage and Front Porch Arts Collective. Under the high-energy direction of the Porch’s co-producing artistic director Dawn M. Simmons, the action is brisk and the barbs free flowing.

In Cooper’s hilarious and moving script, gate agent Peaches, the role originated by Cooper, is a take-me-for-what-I-am Black drag queen, who fills the planes and attends to passengers and their baggage at Gate 1619. The role is played in Boston with confidence and a healthy dose of delirium by Grant Evan, with five other also-talented actors on board as passengers and an array of other attention-getting characters. The always impressive De’Lon Grant plays both a Black preacher presiding over a funeral service, for a man named RightToComplain, and an Andy Cohenesque TV host, while Schanaya Barrows, Dru Sky Berrian, Maconia Chesser, and Kiera Prusmack play everything from overwrought mourners to over-the-top reality-show stars from “The Real Baby Mamas of the South-Side.”

By telephone recently from his New York home, Cooper, 30, spoke of “Ain’t No Mo’,”  “The Ms. Pat Show,” and more.

Where did you get the idea for “Ain’t No Mo’”?

I’ve been writing plays since childhood, and I began writing “Ain’t No Mo’” when I was 19 and living in New York. I had grown up in Hurst, Texas, a very Southern Bible Belt area which I knew wasn’t really where I belonged. In 2014, after high school, I headed to New York. A Black man named Alton Sterling was shot to death by two police officers in Louisiana in 2016, and two years later, Philando Castile was gunned down by a police officer during a routine traffic stop in Minnesota.

All I could think was, “Why do we put up with this?” When I first starting writing, it was with the thought, “What if we just all left?” Ultimately, though, I arrived at a different conclusion. The reality is that we are America. To leave would be like throwing away all the work we put in. What makes African American culture so beautiful is that we made it out of nothing. All the characters kept coming to me, so I started writing this play when I was a freshman at The New School in New York. I always find the thing you’re not supposed to say and say it, like something to laugh about at a funeral. I’m a person with a dark sense of humor, for sure, but I find the light in there, too

How did you go about getting it produced?

I was 22, and I didn’t even know how to get an agent. And the play was so raw and unfiltered that I got many rejections before the Public Theater presented its world premiere in 2018. That was wild, too, because the Public is so prestigious. Before I knew I would ever be working with the Public, I would walk by their building and the see the poster for “Hamilton” hanging there, never believing one of my plays would be produced there.

When they got involved with the play, I was concerned that I’d get notes to tone it down. The Public Theater, however, was wonderful to me and always supportive.

Did you write the piece as a vehicle for you as an actor?

No, not when I was writing it. A friend, Zaihlon Levingston, who co-directed “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” in New York last year, said to me, however, “Your spirit knew you were writing Peaches for yourself, but your ego didn’t.”  That was interesting to me, because another friend, Stevie Walker-Webb, who directed the Broadway production, had originally opened my mind to the idea of even creating a character like Peaches sometime earlier. Stevie said to me, “When are you going to write a queer character?” I was outraged by that at first, because I was a Southern Baptist church kid when being gay came with that fear of what might happen to you just because of being who you are. Now, though, I have to live and tell my truth in my words. I know who I am as a writer.

What was it like for you to perform in this show on Broadway?

Telling this story on-stage leaves you physically exhausted. You have nothing left at the end of the night. I had wanted to be on Broadway, however, since I was a kid – so to go from being a broke college kid with three roommates, two crackheads and a rat, and sleeping on a futon, to being a Broadway actor and playwright was something else. I cried when I walked the red carpet with my parents at the Belasco on opening night. They haven’t always understood the arts or my interests, but they’ve always given me their full support.

Where were you when you learned about your Tony nominations?

I was at home in Hurst. I woke up really early in the same living room where I did my little plays as a child. I was thrilled to be nominated in two categories, for writing and acting. I mean it was almost surreal to be in the same acting category as Samuel L. Jackson (August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson”).  I didn’t end up winning, but I was genuinely happy for Brandon Uranowitz (“Leopoldstadt”) that he did.

How is everything going with “The Ms. Pat Show”?

We’re in our fifth season and our ratings have grown 310 percent over last season, partly due to social media exposure. Series television is like theater with cameras to me. There’s some really crazy stuff coming up, too, that we could only do on this show. That’s because we’re a crazy family drama, but with plenty of physical comedy that I learned watching people like Lucille Ball, Buster Keaton, and Red Skelton.

I understand you call yourself a TV nerd. What do you mean by that?

If I like a pie, then I want to know how it’s made. I love television, so I’ve always been fascinated by Desi Arnaz, who developed the three-camera format and filmed “I Love Lucy” in front of a studio audience. We shoot “The Ms. Pat Show” in front of a live audience, too. And with that show, I also know what colors I want used on the sets and what wigs I want on the cast.

Norman Lear (“All in the Family,” “Good Times,” “The Jeffersons”) changed television and he is the reason comedies like “The Ms. Pat Show” exist today. It was Norman Lear who inspired me to write an R-rated sitcom. I developed the show because Patricia “Ms. Pat” Williams reminded me of people like Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor. Norman and I became friends, too, which gave me memories I will always cherish. The last time I saw him, when it was time to go, he squeezed my hand harder than any 101-year-old should have been squeezing anything and whispered in my ear, “To be continued.”

Speaking of things being continued, what can tell me about your role in “Freakier Friday,” the sequel to 2003’s “Freaky Friday?”

I play a character named Jett in the movie. Jett’s a wannabe rock star and Lindsay Lohan’s personal assistant and confidante. It was so much fun to work with Lindsay, who is just the sweetest person. Both Jamie Lee and Lindsay have great hearts on and off screen, and together they are like a real-life mother and daughter.

You recently reprised “Ain’t No Mo’” for a staged reading at the Apollo Theatre. What was that like?

We did it on Inauguration Day and it was oversold. It was great to step back into Peaches for what was truly an amazing night. I wanted to present a piece that would remind people of the importance of resistance. The message was, “Hey, we’ve got each other. We’re going to stand together and survive whatever comes our way.”

Photo caption: At top, Jordan E. Cooper head shot courtesy of SpeakEasy Stage.

To post a comment, you must register and login.