Following a world premiere at The Public Theater in 2019, Ain't No Mo' will opens on Broadway in fall 2022. With Ain't No Mo', Jordan E. Cooper becomes the youngest Broadway playwright of all time at 27 years old. Get Ain't No Mo' tickets on New York Theatre Guide.
Ain't No Mo' is a play that imagines what would happen if America offered all Black Americans a one-way ticket to Africa, and most of them took the country up on it, believing it a better option than the racism, subjugation, and discrimination they see as otherwise impossible to overcome on American soil. Cooper's show plays out over a series of vignettes that take place before, during, and after that fictional Flight 1619 (a reference to the year the first enslaved Africans reportedly arrived in the then-colonies).
The first vignette is set on November 4, 2008, the day after Barack Obama was elected president, and the Black ensemble lays their "Brother 'Righttocomplain'" to rest at an extravagant funeral that symbolizes promise. But the subsequent vignettes deal with how that hope was walked back — and the grievances represented by "right-to-complain" resurrected" — following the election of Donald Trump in 2016. A flight attendant named Peaches, who oversees Flight 1619, guides the audience through this satirical play, which calls out people of all races in its exploration of systemic racism in America.
The premiere of Ain't No Mo' off Broadway at The Public Theater took place when Cooper was just 24 years old. The New York Times named the show a Critic's Pick, and the five-star New York Theatre Guide review of the Public production reads, "This is more than a story about specific characters. It is a story of a diaspora withdrawing itself from a stage on which it never intended to be." Cooper himself also acted in the show as Peaches, and he does so again in Ain't No Mo' on Broadway.
Director Stevie Walker-Webb makes his Broadway debut with the show; he previously directed its Off-Broadway premiere, winning an Obie Award for his work. Ain't No Mo' is produced by Oscar winner Lee Daniels, the first Black person to solo produce an Oscar-winning film (The Monster's Ball, which earned Halle Berry a Best Actress award). His past producing credits include the movies The Butler and Precious, and the TV show Empire. Ain't No Mo' is his first Broadway production.
The Belasco Theatre, which houses Ain't No Mo' in New York, was last home to another show that had its New York premiere at the Public: the Bob Dylan-scored musical Girl From the North Country.
Tickets to Ain't No Mo' are on sale now.
