At 27 years old, Jordan E. Cooper became the youngest Black playwright in Broadway history with his debut, “Ain’t No Mo’” in 2022. The satirical play gained six Tony Award nominations and won an Obie Award. Three years later, Cooper is back in town with his new off-Broadway production “Oh Happy Day!” which reimagines the story of Noah’s Ark through a Black queer family in Mississippi.
In the show, God asks Keyshawn, the recently deceased main character played by Cooper, to return home and rescue his estranged family from a flood, forcing him to confront his faith and the wounds that drove him away. The play, which premiered globally at Baltimore Center Stage in 2024, is running at The Public Theater until Nov. 9.
Cooper spoke to WSN about the play’s inspiration and his challenges with writing, starring and directing in his own work.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
WSN: What made you want to tell this story right now?
Jordan E. Cooper: I was really interested in the story of Noah. I was thinking about it in terms of how we deal with our own trauma and staying in relationships — family dynamics and internal dynamics. I’ve grown up Black and queer in the South and I have always heard that God hated me and then I was going to hell, but what if all of that was wrong? What if the person that God was most interested in was the one that the family deemed unworthy? And the one that the world deemed unworthy? Keyshawn is that character, the one that nobody wants to pay attention to.
WSN: You write, direct and star in your own plays. What’s harder, directing as Jordan E. Cooper or being directed by Jordan E. Cooper?
Cooper: I would say being directed by Jordan is harder. While performing this specific role, I found myself cussing myself out during the process and thinking, ‘Who wrote this?’ This is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, and I have nobody to blame but myself. But I am really grateful for the ability to work within both brains.
I always say that it is hard for me to fully be an actor until I feel like the play is finished, so a lot of times when I am first writing a play, I will always workshop with a different actor in that role. That way, I can just keep my playwright brain completely on, and I am not dancing back and forth. When it’s time to actually do the play, it feels like I’ve done the work as a playwright, so now I can fully focus on being the actor version of myself.
WSN: Did the success of ‘Ain’t No Mo’’ add pressure to you as a playwright?
Cooper: Thankfully, it did not add any pressure. I did not feel like I had to live up to a certain thing. I like to think ahead, so I never really like to ask myself if the roles I’ve done were a good or a bad thing. A lot of times, I am asking myself, ‘How can I challenge myself even further? How can I get bigger?’ As an artist, you never want to be stagnant. You always want to be constantly challenging yourself and doing the thing that scares you, and this is the play that scared me. Now, I’m just glad that I am able to do it and I am making something that makes me happy. It is fulfilling something within me. That feels great.
WSN: Your art has always been unapologetically political, with ‘Ain’t No Mo’’ exploring a hypothetical world where the federal government has a program to pay for every Black person to move to Africa if they wish. How do you decide when to confront your audiences and when to comfort them?
Cooper: I want to find a way to have a good time, but also be able to have a difficult conversation. I feel like it’s easier to have a difficult conversation when you’re laughing. I never try to intentionally write with the thought that I have a message to give to the world. There is something within myself that I am trying to articulate or understand. I am always trying to make sure that while having hard conversations, I am also finding a way to laugh at the absurdity of whatever that thing is.
WSN: What do you hope your audiences carry with them after seeing the show?
Cooper: Two things. One, I hope that they take away that happiness is a revolutionary active choice. You have to choose your happiness — it’s not something that happens depending on the day or your mood, or a smile, or a laugh. It is something that you have to actively find within yourself. Second, we have to seek God within ourselves and we have to seek God within other people — whether it’s people that we like or don’t like. I feel like we are at a time in this country where people are being dehumanized and discarded, and the minute that we realize no particular human being is better than another human being is when we’re actually going to get somewhere on this Earth.
Contact Srishti Mangla at [email protected].