JORDAN E. COOPER
Age: 28 • Playwright
When his daring Tony-nominated play Ain’t No Mo’ opened last year, Cooper was riding high as the youngest Black American playwright in Broadway history. But it closed after just 28 performances due to poor ticket sales—despite celebrities like Will Smith, Tyler Perry and Shonda Rhimes buying out entire performances of the show to try to save it. “I don’t want to make the art that people want today,” Cooper says of his biting comedy about a creative end to racism. “I want to make the art that they need tomorrow.” Now he’s finding his groove in Hollywood. After a chance 2018 meeting with comedian Ms. Pat (whose real name is Patricia Williams), the two teamed up to create a sitcom based on her life, The Ms. Pat Show. When network executives believed Cooper was too young to helm the series, Ms. Pat advised him to write the pilot and submit it without his name on it. The move paid off: Cooper landed the showrunner gig, and Ms. Pat earned BET one of its first major Emmy nominations for outstanding directing in 2022 and 2023. Next up? A role in Uppercut, a boxing movie starring Ving Rhames.
HOLLYWOOD & ENTERTAINMENT
Braden Bochner, 28
Executive Producer, Unwell
Jasmin Savoy Brown, 29
Actor
Jordan E. Cooper, 28
Playwright
Eric Jordan Darnell, 29
Agent, William Morris Endeavor
Andrew Feldman, 21
Actor
Selina Fillinger, 29
Playwright
Molly Gordon, 29
Actor
Tiffany K. Guillen, 29
Cofounder, Creative X Entertainment
Martin Herlihy, 25
John Higgins, 28
Ben Marshall, 28
Comedians,
Please Don’t Destroy
Holly Hubsher, 28
Senior Vice President of Development & Production, Bay Mills Studios
Sabina Kashi, 29
Comedy Talent Agent, Creative Artists Agency
Gabe Kunda, 29
Voice Actor
Mekki Leeper, 29
Comedian
Jesse Light, 29
Head of Development, Haymaker East Content
Jenna Ortega, 21
Actor
Jason Pan, 27
Manager, Spectacle
Original Series, Netflix
Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, 22
Actor
Haley Lu Richardson, 28
Actor
Matt Rife, 28
Comedian
Michael Ritter, 29
Producer,
Street Entertainment
Emily Ruhl, 27
Founder, Public
School Pictures
Shelby Schenkman, 27
Agent, United Talent Agency
Noah Schnapp, 19
Actor
Alyah Chanelle Scott, 26
Actor
Emma Seligman, 28
Director
Rachel Sennott, 28
Actor
Akanksha Singh, 28
Cofounder, Backdrop
Cailee Spaeny, 25
Actor
Lexi Underwood, 20
Actor
Celeste Yim, 27
Writing Supervisor, Saturday Night Live JUDGES: Ayo Edebiri, actor; Sarah Harden, CEO, Hello Sunshine; Ashley Park, actor; Darren Star, producer, writer and director