MATT & BEN
Matt & Ben
Written by Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers
Directed by Shana Gozansky
May 27 - June 17, 2018
Two best friends, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, sit down to write their first screenplay, an adaptation of Catcher in the Rye (obviously) when suddenly a fully realized script falls from the sky. The name on that script: Good Will Hunting. What will these two friends do? Can fame literally land in your lap? Written by Mindy Kaling (of NBC’s The Office) and Brenda Withers, the gender-bending Off-Broadway hit Matt & Ben is a sharp skewering of celebrity culture and an affectionate look at favorite one of Hollywood’s favorite bromances. Bring a friend. Some things are meant to be shared.
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The Artists
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Cast
CAITLIN NASEMA CASSIDY (Matt): is an actor-singer-theatremaker, thrilled to be joining the Kitchen Theatre for Matt & Ben. Caitlin is a 2017-18 Fellow with The Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics and Global Cultural Fellow with the University of Edinburgh's Institute for International Cultural Relations. She serves as Co-Artistic Director of LubDub Theatre Company. Acting credits include: Pay No Attention to the Girl (Target Margin Theater, David Herskovits), Paradise (Central Square Theater, Shana Gozansky), Anything Goes (Williamstown, Roger Rees), Kafka's Metamorphosis (Synetic Theatre Company, Derek Goldman) and Equity National Tours of There Is a Field, Showboat, and Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Training: Georgetown University, East 15 in London, Shakespeare's Globe. www.CaitlinNCassidy.com
LILLI HOKAMA (Ben): is thrilled to be a part of Kitchen Theatre Company’s cast of Matt & Ben. Her most recent credits include a reading of Albert County Library System; Lakeside Branch presented by Playwrights Realm Ink’d Festival. Understudy for The Wolves at Lincoln Center Theatre. I and You, with Chester Theatre in MA and Greenland, at Dixon Place in NY. Before moving to New York she toured to CA with the new musical I Am Alive. Credits from her hometown in CO include Troilus and Cressida (Aeneas) with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, The Arabian Nights (Scheherazade) and She Kills Monsters (Agnes) with the Aurora Fox. She has been a part of numerous new works including The Wave That Set the Fire and Companions LLC, and the first reading of The Rape of the Sabine Women by Grace B. Matthias. She also performed a one woman show, Foundations, presented as a part of Theater Esprit Asia’s, Coming To America. Infinite love and gratitude to her astounding friends and family. It is by their immeasurable support that she can pursue her dreams with such gusto.
Creative Team
MINDY KALING (Playwright): is an American actress, comedian, and writer. Kaling is known for creating, writing, producing and starring in the Fox/Hulu sitcom The Mindy Project (2012–2017). She is also known for her work on the NBC sitcom The Office (2005–2013), where she portrayed the character Kelly Kapoor. In addition to acting on the show, she was a writer, executive producer, and occasional director throughout most of the series' run. Awards for her work on The Office include a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series in 2010. In 2017, NBC ordered Champions, where Kaling is a co-creator, writer, and producer. She will have a reoccurring guest role on the show, which premiered Thursday, March 8, 2018 on NBC. Kailing's film career includes voice work in the films Despicable Me (2010), Wreck It Ralph (2012), Inside Out (2015) and starring roles in the fantasy adventure A Wrinkle in Time and heist-comedy Ocean's 8, both 2018. In addition to her work on film and television, Kaling has written two New York Times best-selling memoirs, titled Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) and Why Not Me?.
BRENDA WITHERS (Playwright): is a writer, actor, and founding member of the Harbor Stage Company, an artist-run ensemble on Cape Cod. Her other plays include The Kritik, Northside Hollow, and The Ding Dongs and have been developed and presented at places like Amphibian Stage Productions, PS122, Portland Stage, HERE, and Dreamcatcher Rep. She was an Audrey Resident with New Georges, a playwriting fellow at the Camargo Foundation, and the winner of the 2015 Clauder Prize for her play String Around My Finger. Brenda studied drama and religion at Dartmouth College.
SHANA GOZANSKY (Director): is a freelance director and teaching artist based in the Boston area. Her work has been produced at Boston Playwrights Theater, Central Square Theater, Trinity Repertory Company, the Hangar Theatre, The Calderwood Arts Pavilion, as well as multiple venues throughout New York City. She has assisted on productions at Berkeley Rep, The Geffen, Manhattan Ensemble Theatre, Henry Miller’s Theater, and Trinity Repertory Company and has taught acting and directing at Brown University, College of the Holy Cross, Clark University, the Hangar Theatre, and Trinity Repertory Company. Shana holds a MFA in Directing from the Brown University/Trinity Repertory Company MFA Programs and a BA in Theater from Bard College, was an Artistic Associate at the Hangar Theatre, an Artist-in-Residence at chashama and The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. She is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and is a Drama League Directing Fellow. Shana is thrilled to be back in Ithaca and to be working with the phenomenal Kitchen team.
ANNA GRIGO (Scenic Design): is a professional New York City-based production designer for theatre, opera, film, and the visual arts. She has a degree in scenic and costume design from Ithaca College. Selected professional credits include: Scenic Designer for Shining City (Hudson Stage Company), Decline and Fall (Jersey City Theatre Center), Peter and the Starcatcher (Hewitt School) (Cider Mill Playhouse), Red (CMP), Anna and Alan (Independent Film), Cherubim (FringeNYC), Implications of Cohabitation (Theater Row); Costume Designer for The Yellow Wallpaper (Dixon Place), Fernando (Ice Factory Festival NYC), Thumbprint (Opera Ithaca), Urinetown (CMP), Billy Blythe (Opera Ithaca), The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (Children's Theatre of Charlotte), The 39 Steps (CMP), and Come Back Up (Sanguine Theatre Company). Upcoming projects include: Women In Jeopardy! at Cortland Repertory Theatre (August 15-25). www.annagrigo.com
MEGAN PARKER (Costume Design & Properties Master): is a costume and scenic designer from Forest Hills, NY. She recently received her BFA from Ithaca College. Previous credits include costume designer for In the Red and Brown Water at Ithaca College and Properties Master for Ironbound and Every Brilliant Thing at the Kitchen Theatre. This is her first costume design at the Kitchen Theatre and she is very excited about it!
PORNCHANOK KANCHANABANCA [NOK] (Sound Design): is a Thai artist, sound designer, and composer based in New York and Chicago. She graduated from the Sound Design program at Yale School of Drama. Recent productions include Cymbeline (Original music, Yale Repertory Theatre), Be Here Now (Original music, Cincinnati Play House), Frontières sans Frontières (The Bushwick Starr), The Humans (Theatresquared), Alligator (New Georges & The Sol Project), Heartland (Geva Theatre), Father Comes Home From The Wars (Juilliard), Red Demon (Tokyo Metropolitan, Singapore Arts Fest). She has also collaborated on designs with theatre companies in Thailand including B-floor, Babymine, Crescent Moon, Makharmpom, Democrazy. www.wishnok-music.com
ANNIE WIEGAND (Light Design): is a freelance lighting designer who happens to be Deaf. Selected New York productions: Follies (Astoria Performing Arts Center); Brahman/i (Kitchen Theatre Company); Uncommon Sense (Tectonic Theatre Project, Associate); Spring Awakening (Broadway, 2nd Assistant - Tony Nominee, Best Lighting Design). Selected Boston productions: The Bridges of Madison County (IRNE Awards Nominee, Best Lighting Design); The Who And the What (Huntington Theatre Company); Fast Company (Lyric Stage); Tribes (Speakeasy Stage Company). Teaching Artist, Roundabout Theatre Company; Member, Wingspace Theatrical Design collective; Adjunct Professor, Theatre Arts Department, Gallaudet University in Washington, DC; and Producing Director, New York Deaf Theatre. anniewiegand.com
ASHLEY BRENON (Fight Choreographer): is a recent graduate of the BA Theatre Studies Program at Ithaca College. Her IC credits include production dramaturg for Cabaret, director for 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, director for Love, Loss and What I Wore, and director for Rapture, Blister, Burn. Her other credits include assistant director for The Drowsy Chaperone with Cider Mill Playhouse. Ashley would like to thank the Kitchen Theatre Company and all of the amazing women she has encountered during this process for making her first post-grad project so hilarious and special.
LISA DONADIO (Casting Director): is the Associate Casting Director at Playwrights Horizons. Credits include: Clybourne Park (Broadway and PH), The Flick (Barrow Street and PH), Bootycandy, The Qualms, Detroit, Circle Mirror Transformation, Stage Kiss, Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play, Rapture Blister Burn, and Present Laughter with Victor Garber for The Huntington Theatre and Roundabout. TV credits include: “Knights of Prosperity aka Let’s Rob Mick Jagger” (ABC). Other theaters include: Women’s Project, Huntington Theatre, Seattle Rep, ACT in San Francisco, Berkeley Rep, Alley Theatre, Arena in DC. Festivals: Williamstown and Humana. Casting Director for Villa at The Play Company.