00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Jordan, it is wonderful to be here with you today.
00:09 - So great to be here with you.
00:11 It's so exciting.
00:12 - So let's start.
00:13 You made history as the youngest black playwright
00:16 in Broadway history, which is incredible.
00:18 How did that make you feel?
00:20 - Insane, you know, insane.
00:22 Like it's something you don't even really think about,
00:24 you know, 'cause you're too busy just doing the work.
00:27 But to think about the fact that, you know,
00:29 the person before me was Lorraine Hansberry
00:31 wrote A Raisin in the Sun in 1958, you know?
00:34 So to think that I'm like following in that footsteps,
00:36 in that lineage just excites me.
00:38 And also, you know, to me is the beginning of the future.
00:41 It's the beginning of a new kind of storytelling
00:44 and a new kind of theater and a new kind of Broadway,
00:46 you know?
00:47 - I wanna hear about your background.
00:50 How did you get into theater, Broadway and entertainment?
00:54 - It all started when I was really young,
00:55 like about six years old.
00:57 I would always put on these plays in my living room
01:00 and I would cut up my mom's weave
01:01 and my dad's work uniform to make costumes.
01:04 I really just like love telling stories
01:07 and love becoming other characters.
01:09 And so that started with like me doing plays in the living
01:11 room to going to the backyard, to growing from the backyard,
01:14 to doing them in the church.
01:15 So that just grew.
01:16 And then when I moved to New York,
01:18 I would like hand out flyers in Times Square
01:21 and like on the subway, trying to like pass out
01:23 and let people know that my shows were happening.
01:25 And that just grew and grew.
01:26 And then I did Ain't No Mo' at the Public Theater
01:29 and then it went from the Public Theater to Broadway.
01:32 (upbeat music)
01:34 - How did you convince producers to take a chance on you
01:38 and take a chance on Ain't No Mo' and get it to Broadway?
01:40 - Yeah, you know what's crazy is I really had to do
01:42 a lot of the work myself first.
01:44 - Really?
01:45 - Yeah, because it was one of those pieces where
01:48 it just wasn't like anything else.
01:51 You know, when people want you to compare something
01:52 to something, it's like,
01:53 I don't really know what it's comparative to,
01:55 but really I had to believe in myself
01:58 and believe in my work before I trusted other people
02:01 to believe in it for me, right?
02:03 And I think that started with putting on readings,
02:05 like with the community, like finding different,
02:07 different organizations that would let me just set up
02:10 music stands and call friends and read a play, right?
02:13 And I think once I started doing that,
02:15 that's when Jack Phillips-Moore from the Public Theater
02:18 ended up seeing a reading of it
02:20 that was done in New York Theater Workshop
02:21 with Stevie Walker Webb.
02:22 And it just kind of grew from there.
02:24 (upbeat music)
02:27 - And how were you able to like,
02:29 break into the Hollywood scene,
02:30 convince BET to take a chance on you?
02:32 What was that process like for you?
02:34 - Oh, that was a journey.
02:35 So, so the Miss Patch Show, I was 23 when I wrote it.
02:40 And I actually wrote it in my apartment.
02:42 I used to live in this horrible New York apartment.
02:46 I didn't have a closet.
02:47 I slept on a futon.
02:49 I always said I had five roommates and two rats.
02:51 'Cause it was just the best.
02:53 So I wrote that pilot.
02:55 Lee Daniels brought me to Fox and Miss Pat brought me
02:57 to Fox and they were like, absolutely not.
02:58 We're not giving a kid in college a television show.
03:01 I don't care how good his plays are.
03:02 They were like, we're not doing that, right?
03:05 So Lee's like, you know, well, we're gonna keep trying.
03:07 And Miss Pat calls me and she said,
03:10 I want you to do something for me.
03:12 I want you to write the first episode.
03:14 I was like, what?
03:14 She was like, write the first episode
03:16 and take your name off of it.
03:17 I was like, what do you mean take my name off of it?
03:20 So I took my name off of it.
03:21 I wrote the episode, trusting,
03:24 and she sent it in to Fox, her and Lee Daniels.
03:28 And Fox said, who wrote this?
03:30 And they said, it was the kids you didn't want to hire.
03:32 (laughing)
03:34 - What a good strategy.
03:35 - Yeah, and that's how I ended up being able
03:38 to have my own show.
03:39 - Wow, that's really cool.
03:41 And finally, Jordan, I'm sure you've got a lot of rejection
03:44 in your career, being in theater, being in Hollywood.
03:47 Tell me about that experience for you
03:49 and any advice you have for others who may be pitching
03:51 or going through similar rejections in their fields.
03:54 - Yeah, don't let nobody talk you out of what you know
03:57 to be true, right?
03:59 Because if they can't give you the space,
04:01 you can find the space.
04:03 If you gotta do it in the living room,
04:04 if you gotta do it in the backyard,
04:06 if you gotta do it at the rec center, do it.
04:08 There's always some form of you're not good enough.
04:12 There's always some form of we don't get it.
04:14 We don't understand it.
04:15 That's too much.
04:16 That's too, you know, what I'm grateful for
04:18 is because I've received so many no's,
04:21 at some point, spirit just knocks something into my head.
04:24 It's like, do you know who you are?
04:26 Do you know what you've done
04:28 when people told you you couldn't do it?
04:29 When people said it was impossible?
04:32 And I think that that's what's really, you know,
04:35 pushed me forward is to never, ever, ever take no
04:40 for an answer when there's a yes in the bottom of your gut.
04:43 (upbeat music)
04:45 (upbeat music)
