Ain't No Mo' - by Jordan E Cooper (Paperback)

About the Book

"The time is the near future, and a giant plane has been chartered to take Black Americans "back to Africa." Hurrying passengers down the runway is Peaches, a flight attendant (played by a performer in drag) who is organizing the boarding process. Within this frame, Cooper examines lives torn apart by gang violence, the aspirations of a Black middle class eager to leave behind those they feel are beneath them, and the equally delusional aspirations of some white Americans to "transition" into Blackness."-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

Thought-provoking and electrifying...Ain't No Mo' both honors its ancestors and loudly makes a stand for its own unique perspective. --Greg Evans, Deadline

The time is the near future, and African American Airlines Flight 1619 has been chartered to take Black Americans "back to Africa." Organizing the boarding process is Peaches, a flight agent in drag who is juggling the passengers' excitement and reluctance, as well as her own. Presented in eight vignettes, Jordan E. Cooper's Ain't No Mo' is both a satire and a serious investigation examining the ever-varying facets of the Black American experience: lives affected by violence, class tensions, the prison-industrial complex, and culture vultures.

Review Quotes

Thrilling, bewildering, campy, shrewd, mortifying, scary, devastating, and deep...nothing less than a spiritual portrait of Black American life right now, with all its terrors, hopes, and contradictions.

--Jesse Green, New York Times

At its best and wildest, Ain't No Mo' spirals into the kind of absurdism that, in frighteningly absurd times, feels like a mirror up to nature: It's dead funny, but it's no joke...Ain't No Mo' digs in its heels and its teeth, balancing explosive playfulness with focused attack, fierce lament with equally fierce celebration.

--Sara Holdren, Vulture

Ain't No Mo', a blast of a Black Broadway show, doesn't so much occupy the space between sketch comedy and old-school play as smash a hole in whatever barrier has been assumed to divide them...Theatrical, funny, and deeply moving.

--Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune

Ain't No Mo' is a dazzling cascade of ideas--sometimes hilarious, sometimes shocking, always edged with risk...Jordan E. Cooper has come to Broadway to make a little noise.

--Adam Feldman, Time Out

Ain't No Mo' wrangles rhetorical fantasy into a rolicking, high-concept sitcom, mining dark comedy from the horrors of racism and the particulars of Black life. Explosive as a hand grenade of laughing gas, it's heady and hysterical and fearlessly provocative. Its keen observations about race as both social construction and lived reality crackle like a lit fuse.

--Naveen Kumar, Variety

Searingly satirical tragicomedy...Cooper's script speaks to the moment in ways both pointed and unanticipated.

--Thomas Floyd, Washington Post

Scathing in comic outlook and shameless in its frank language...Ain't No Mo' is a sharply satirical study in Black manners and matters.

--Michael Sommers, New York Stage Review

Cooper, a fearless, equal-opportunity satirist, enables audiences of all racial compositions to swallow the despair and suffering inside Ain't No Mo' with generous spoonfuls of hilarity and irony: two extremes and the truth. And the medicine goes down.

--Mary Lincer, Broadway World

Ain't No Mo', a badass sketch comedy about the Black experience in America and a mythical airline flight in response to it, is a theatrical excursion...fanged, ferocious, and funny.

--Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Theatre Guide

Ain't No Mo' is about Blackness in America. That is not a small thing. As the show points out, that involves a complicated history, a deep impact on American culture, and a continued fight to be seen as equal. But it is also people--funny, sad, wounded, loving, fed-up, and holding it together. As they always have.

--Nicole Serratore, Exeunt

Hilarious yet sobering...an ingenious way to dig into some of the nasty truths about this country''s equally absurd failure to come to terms with the legacy of slavery.

--Pete Hempstead, TheaterMania

An explosive volcano of a play...Unfolding over a series of eight vignettes, the mixture of side-splitting comedy as well as stomach churning pain, eventually lead to its powerful conclusion...Jordan E. Cooper meets the moment.

--Ron Fassler, Theater Pizzazz

Ain't No Mo' is at its core a satire built upon the Black American experience...Amid its grandiosity and camp aesthetics, the show gives an incredible amount of care to the stories and messages it delivers, using humor effectively to shed a light on reality.

--Ajani Jones, DC Theater Arts

It's difficult for a show to take on the weight of 400 years of history and also be laugh-out-loud funny, but that's exactly what playwright Jordan E. Cooper accomplishes with Ain't No Mo'...the rare satirical work that feels as affirming as it does biting, as joyful as it is discomforting.

--Nathan Pugh, Theatrely

About the Author

Jordan E. Cooper is an award winning performer and playwright who was recently one of Out magazine's "Entertainers Of The Year." He starred in a sold-out Broadway run of his playAin't No Mo', which was a New York Times Critic's Pick. Cooper also created a pandemic-centered short film called Mama Got A Cough that's been featured in National Geographic and was named "Best Of 2020" by The New York Times. He is the creator and executive producer of The Ms. Pat Show, an R-rated "old school" sitcom coming to BET+. He can also be seen recurring as Tyrone in the final season of FX's Pose.