Mindy Kaling's 'Matt & Ben' Reimagines Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's Rise to 'Good Will Hunting' Stardom
As Mindy Kaling is busy instagramming her outfit possibilities for her book cover shoot, a Matt Damon-Ben Affleck spoof she co-wrote before she became a star on The Office and her own sitcom The Mindy Project is coming to The Producers' Club for a brief Off-Off-Broadway run August 20-24, presented by The AlphaNYC Theater Company.
In 2011 Kaling published the comedic memoir Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns). A follow-up, Why Not Me?, is set to come out next year, and the actress has been having some public fun deciding what to wear for the cover photo.
But she was pretty much an unknown when she and her friend Brenda K. Withers (The Ding Dongs, or What Is the Penalty in Portugal?) co-wrote Matt & Ben, which parodies the story behind Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's rise from Boston obscurity to Hollywood glory on the strength of their film Good Will Hunting.
In Kaling and Withers' version, rather than writing the script for the Oscar-winning 1997 film, Matt and Ben receive it from a mysterious heavenly source and come to understand that a higher power is testing them.
The AlphaNYC Theater Company is "dedicated to providing up-and-coming actors and singers of all ages with little [sic] or no New York City stage credits, a place to showcase their talents." Who knows? Maybe the actors in this Matt & Ben will turn out to be the next Matt and Ben.
The third season of The Mindy Project premieres in September 2014.