Ben Affleck, Matt Damon’s Bromance Inspired This New Denver Theater Company’s Debut

In an intimate garage space, surrounded by a School Ties poster, a 1990s headshot of J.Lo and other makeshift set pieces, Jo McIver Lee and Em Perez rehearsed for their latest roles: Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

They were preparing for Matt & Ben, the debut show for their new company, UnLeashed Theatre Co. The two-woman play reimagines the two Boston boys at their most vulnerable – young, broke and hilariously clueless about their future success.

“The script, written by Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers, is a satire depicting them as recent college graduates living in a bachelor pad,” says Perez, who plays Ben Affleck. “They’re 23 years old. What does that look like when they’re writing something like Good Will Hunting? And that dichotomy was interesting to us, because Good Will Hunting, of course, is this sort of paragon of a script for a lot of people, and then to play with this 23-year-old douchey college-age, bachelor-pad vibe was a really fun space for us.”

The duo’s journey to founding UnLeashed is just as quirky and playful as their production choices. “We met doing theater at the University of Colorado Denver, and we’ve just continued creating together ever since,” recalls McIver Lee, who plays Matt Damon.  After college, McIver Lee and Perez jumped headfirst into comedy, founding Bub Comedy in 2014, a Longmont-based production company that hosted standup and variety shows in collaboration with local breweries and coffee shops.

“That’s kind of where we found our niche,” Perez says. “Our love for comedy and the belief that theater should be really approachable and fun. You don’t have to dress up, which is different from a lot of different theater companies.”

By 2020, they dissolved Bub Comedy, wanting to expand their storytelling beyond standup. As McIver Lee explains, they felt the need to return to their theater roots while preserving the sense of play they’d established in their earlier work. “We learned a lot of lessons through Bub Comedy,” Perez adds. Those lessons, combined with their desire to keep things “goofy and high-energy,” made Matt & Ben the perfect first show for UnLeashed.

In the play, a mystical intervention causes the entire script for Good Will Hunting to drop from the sky and land in the laps of a young Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. What follows is a hilarious exploration of ego, ambition and friendship, set against the backdrop of Boston accents and cheese puffs.

“We still wanted that same community vibe that we had with Bub Comedy, and Matt & Ben seemed like such a good fit for that,” Perez says. “It’s a two-woman show. It is only about an hour long and packed with goofy energy – this is the energy we want to bring to every show we do.”

They emphasize how Unleashed is also committed to accessibility and audience engagement, explaining how they want to create spaces where audiences feel connected to the performance, much like in standup comedy.

“It’s not just about us finding a play that we like,” says Perez. “It’s about finding a play that’s going to be cool and interesting to an audience. How do we play with an audience like you do in stand-up? The connection with the audience is the most important aspect of our work.”

This approach also means shaking up the typical theater model. Rather than relying on wealthy donors, UnLeashed holds fast to affordable ticket prices and diverse, unconventional programming. McIver Lee points out that many theaters end up catering to older, affluent patrons, but UnLeashed wants to attract a broader audience with more modern material. With Matt & Ben, they’re offering $15 tickets and bringing the show to nontraditional venues such as Junkyard Social Club and Town Hall Collaborative, in addition to standard black-box theaters like Three Leaches Theatre and the Dairy Arts Center.

“We’re trying to hit a wider audience,” Perez says. “We’re not just targeting regular theatergoers, but a more everyman audience who are looking to go do something fun at the bar on a Friday or Saturday night with their friends. This is something sort of casual that is fun, goofy and doesn’t take a lot of energy from you.”

In keeping with their commitment to playfulness, each performance of Matt & Ben will be preceded by standup comedy from local comedians such as Britt Boyd, Gabby Gutierrez-Reed and Zoe Rogers. “It ties back to our love for variety shows and desire to make a nontraditional-theater audience comfortable,” says McIver Lee. “Our show is pretty wacky; it’s got the same energy as some standup comedy shows.”

Moving forward, UnLeashed is laying the groundwork for a new play pipeline. The founders have started a playwriting club to encourage new voices and provide a platform for underrepresented playwrights to network with one another. Additionally, UnLeashed is in talks with the Athena Project to partner on local workshops of new plays. In March 2025, the troupe plans to host a new play reading series in unconventional venues. 

“We would like to produce another full-stage play in the fall of 2025, but we need to find a new play to produce, so we are focusing on that new play pipeline right now,” Perez says. “We’re not here looking to turn a profit; we’re here looking to make enough to do something cool and interesting that we find engaging, and we hope others do as well.”

Matt & Ben, Friday, October 25, Town Hall Collaborative, 525 Santa Fe Drive; Saturday, November 2, through Sunday, November 3 , Junkyard Social Club, 2525 Frontier Avenue Suite A, Boulder; Friday, November 15, through Saturday, November 23, Three Leaches Theatre, 1560 Teller Street, Lakewood; and Friday, November 29, through Saturday, November 30, the Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut Street, Boulder. Tickets are $15. Learn more at unleashedtheatre.com.