Photos: Max Downs
North Hollywood, CA (The Hollywood Times) 7/31/26 – It’s hardly fair to judge a play from an opening night performance where a member of the audience passes out at the foot of the stage, two-thirds of the way through the show. The ambulance’s arrival may not have been the highlight of the show, but it was certainly the most dramatic. And if it seems like I am making light of the situation, the paramedics assured everyone that the fellow will be fine. The show resumed after an unplanned intermission, but the momentum hit a heck of a speed bump, and the stars had more on their minds than the lines.
All things considered, Matt & Ben went really well. It’s hard not to like any show by Please Like Us Productions.
Mindy Kaling was an unknown in 2003 when she and her writing partner Brenda Withers mounted a New York Fringe Festival play imagining the origin story of another writing pair: Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. How did those dimpled frat boys from Boston come up with an Oscar-winning screenplay like Good Will Hunting and become Oscar-winning Hollywood darlings overnight?
According to this breezy yet acid-tipped 70-minute one-act play, they didn’t. The script for Good Will Hunting fell from the sky — or at least from the ceiling of Ben’s pizza box-strewn apartment while the pair were working on an adaptation of Catcher in the Rye. So unschooled were the boys they didn’t even realize they could never get the rights to adapt Catcher in the Rye.
What will they do with this unearned blessing? Will it cement their long friendship or blow it apart? And who gets to play Will? A full house at the Sherry Theatre in the NoHo Arts District on Friday night was eager to find out.
As directed by Max Downs, this Matt & Ben imagines Ben as the entitled charismatic jock and Matt as the perfectionist intellectual. “Remember to spell any words you think I might have trouble with,” says Ben, as Matt is dictating dialog.
Ben is by far the showier role here, with Spring Ferrara as a, well, coiled spring of ADHD energy barely contained in a tall rangy body. We did mention that Matt and Ben are both played by women, right? Genevieve Lerner is the buttoned-down Matt. The boys have always been played by girls, ever since Kaling and Withers invented them more than 20 years ago. This gives the story of young male bonding and competitiveness an interesting perspective. Female friendships seem inherently different from male friendships. Will that change when the women are wearing a backward baseball cap (Ben) and khakis (Matt)?
This script could make or break the relationship between the slacker and the try hard. From the perspective of 2026, we know exactly what will become of them. Back in 2002, it wasn’t so obvious. But then and now, the play is a terrific showcase for the two leads.
Ferrara and Lerner have enormous identification with and affection for their characters. The playwrights, not so much. Back before she made it herself, a twentysomething Kaling was pretty resentful of two twentysomethings who seemingly lucked into their stardom. And what’s with the scattershot sideburns to Gwyneth Paltrow, JD Salinger, and David Schwimmer, of all people? Now that Kaling has won a Tony and oodles of Emmy nominations, I wonder if she still feels the same way?
Matt & Ben
Presented by Please Like Us Productions
written by Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers
directed by Max Downs
starring Genevieve Lerner and Spring Ferrara
11052 Magnolia Blvd, North Hollywood
Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm through September 5
