It’s been nearly 30 years since the release of 1997’s Good Will Hunting, the movie about a mathematical genius with a troubled past from South Boston that turned Matt Damon and Ben Affleck into famous actors and filmmakers. The film was a commercial and critical hit, and the history of how it was made became part of Hollywood folklore.
That story, albeit a fictionalized take, is told in Matt & Ben, a comedic, two-woman show running at Santa Cruz Actors’ Theatre March 13 through 22. Written by The Office’s Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers, and directed by Ian Dyer, the play recounts how the two Hollywood golden boys started out as childhood buddies and total unknowns in Massachusetts, before Gwyneth Paltrow, Bennifer, Bennifer 2.0 and the Dunkin’ Donuts ads happened.
“The conceit of the play is that the script for Good Will Hunting falls fully formed and realized from the sky, and the whole rest of the play is about them deciding what to do with it and trying to figure out what it means on a cosmic level,” says actress Sarah K. Michael. “There’s a parody element to it. But it’s also a rumination on the nature of close friendship and how that can be challenged in the face of creative disagreement.”
As the movie’s legend goes, Damon began writing Good Will Hunting while still studying at Harvard. After moving to L.A., he and Affleck shopped the script around to various studios and directors before it was ultimately produced by Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax Films and directed by Gus Van Sant. The film was nominated for nine Oscars, scoring one for Robin Williams for Best Supporting Actor and another for Damon and Affleck for Best Original Screenplay. At 25, Affleck was the youngest person to win for that category.
Kaling and Withers were students at Dartmouth when they wrote Matt & Ben, which premiered in New York in 2002. Kaling would go on to star in and write for The Office and become a Hollywood powerhouse in her own right.
Michael read the play some 15 years ago while living in New York. After appearing together in Evil Dead: The Musical at the Mountain Community Theater in 2024, Michael, Dyer and co-star Sarah Mitchler launched their own theater production company, Good Egg Productions, and chose Matt & Ben as their first show.
The play takes place inside Affleck’s dirty, rundown apartment in Somerville, Massachusetts. Affleck, played by Michael, is an athletic, bro type, while Damon, played by Mitchler, is more of an intellectual. The two are competitive, struggling actors living off of junk food when the script for Good Will Hunting literally falls from the sky and onto their coffee table. They argue over the fate of the script and who gets to portray Will.
“It’s really fun playing around with the differences between Matt and Ben,” says Michael. “Matt is a really smart guy who’s always two steps ahead of the game. Physically, he’s a little guy. Ben is more of a jock and a classic dude. But despite their differences, they’re best friends. It’s kind of an opposites attract scenario. And even though they make fun of each other the way that guys do and they really frustrate each other, it all comes from a place of deep love and admiration.”
The play mocks Hollywood’s love of rags-to-riches stories and, in a more subtle way, the disparity between the haves and the have-nots in the movie industry that still exists today.
“It’s written by and for two women who are playing these iconic men who became so successful so fast,” says Michael. “One of the questions the play poses is why did that happen? Why do some people get on the fast track to success and not others? Why did these middle-class, cis white men have this privilege when those in marginalized roles are still struggling? It looks at what privilege can bring to someone’s career. Being a woman of color, Kaling is able to ask those questions, but in a really funny way.”
The play also reminds the audience how a movie’s origins can contribute to its enduring popularity.
“The story behind the creation of the film is part of its narrative,” says Michael. “The fact that they created it in this really scrappy way, wrote it themselves, and then pitched it to the right people. It’s an inspiring underdog story that still resonates with people.”
Matt & Ben runs Friday-Sunday, March 13-22, 2 & 7 pm, at the Santa Cruz Actors’ Theatre, 1001 Center St., Santa Cruz. Tickets $35 at santacruzactorstheatre.org.
