JustArts sat down with Samantha Gordon '14 and Nicole Carlson '14 to talk about their senior project, a production of the play Matt and Ben, which will be showing this weekend.

JustArts: Would you tell us a bit about how you chose Matt and Ben to be your senior project?

Nicole Carlson: I looked through two-woman shows, and all of the sudden I found this one, and I was like, "Oh my god, Mindy Kaling wrote this! Oh my god, it's about Matt Damon and Ben Affleck! Oh my god, it's girls playing Matt Damon and Ben Affleck!" So I sent that information to Sam.

Samantha Gordon: And I was abroad when this was happening. I read the scripts and I really liked Matt and Ben the most.

JA: For those who are unfamiliar, would you give us a brief synopsis of the play?

SG: It's basically Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, pre-fame, in the late 1990's, in Somerville, Mass. And the script of Good Will Hunting just falls into their laps. It's this sort of fantasy take on them writing this script, and instead of them actually writing it, they just get handed it, and [the rest is] what happens and how their friendship is affected by it.

NC: And then they go through a re-hashing of their friendship in high school, up to this point, and what they want to do with the script.

JA: So how long have you guys been working on this project and what has that process been like for you?

SG: We've been working on it since like April. We had to apply to the [Theater] department ... and we wanted it to count for a class, so we had to go through that whole process.

NC: We were memorizing, looking at the script over the summer. ... Our first read-throughs and table reads were over Skype. ... We've really had it on its feet since the beginning of October, and the rest of that has really just been building our relationship. We're playing these two people who really are best friends and know everything about each other and have had years of experience together ... Before this process, we weren't incredibly close, but now she's one of my best friends.

JA: Are there any other challenges in bringing the production to the stage that you've faced?

SG: Finding pants for me as Matt Damon was very trying. I usually cry when I have to put on pants.

NC: What's going to stress me out right now ... is fitting people in our room. We really can't do it on a stage.

SG: We perform so much better in front of people, we interact with the audience a lot, too.

NC: We wanted it to be really intimate, like you're hanging out with us in our apartment, because that's what it is. This is my post-college apartment.

SG: Memorizing was really difficult. For the two of us to memorize each half the show, and then a lot of her lines are just little words, and a lot of my lines are big monologues.

JA: Are you hoping to continue to stay active in theater after graduation?

SG: That's a difficult question, because you're talking to two people who are going into different fields than theater, but two people who love theater. I do improv also, so I know I'll definitely be involved.

NC: I am probably going to graduate and be an elementary school teacher, and I would really like to either be the elementary school teacher who runs the drama program, or if a school has an elementary school drama teacher, I would love to be that person.

JA: What do you hope your audiences will take away from the play?

SG: I hope they'll be grateful for their friends and have had a fun time laughing for an hour.

- Rachel Hughes