Jordan E. Cooper on Saving Broadway’s ‘Ain’t No Mo,’’ His “Love and Loathe” Letter to American Theater

Producers and celeb fans of the critically acclaimed new Broadway show “Ain’t No Mo” are fighting hard to prevent it from being — quite literally — ain’t no mo.

via: The Hollywood Reporter

Just one week after its opening, new Broadway play Ain’t No Mo’ announced it would soon be ending its run.

Written by and starring Jordan E. Cooper — the youngest Black American playwright in Broadway history — and produced by Lee Daniels, the play is set to close on Dec. 18, unless the production can rally audiences and boost ticket sales enough to reverse the decision. So far, the production has received support from Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, who bought out a performance of the show this week, with Cooper telling The Hollywood Reporter there’s more still to come.

The provocative comedy, which asks the question “what if the U.S. government attempted to solve racism by offering Black Americans one-way plane tickets to Africa?” features an all-Black cast playing out the characters’ responses over a series of sketches. Cooper plays Peaches, a bossy flight attendant in drag attempting to organize the boarding process.

While well-reviewed, Ain’t No Mo’ has struggled at the box office during the five or so weeks of its run so far, highlighting the challenges of bringing new work to Broadway in the post-pandemic era. Particularly for shows doing so without well-known stars attached and amid the work that remains to welcome audiences of color to Broadway. It’s a challenging closing that comes on the heels of KPOP, an original work about Korean pop artists, which closed on Sunday after a similarly short run.

“This is so much bigger than Ain’t No Mo‘. We have to shift for the people that are coming after us. We can’t let this happen to this kind of work,” Cooper said. “It deserves to be in a commercial space, too.”

Cooper spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about the challenges of bringing Black audiences to the theater, how marketing and ticket prices fit into that and the prospects for his show and other original works on Broadway.

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