Ben Platt is in many respects the third most successful theatrical performer of our day, behind Lin-Manuel Miranda and Taylor Swift (documentation of this disgraceful history can be found here and here).
The extraordinarily gifted tenor grew up in Los Angeles with Molly Gordon, a fellow theater kid there, and BFF Beanie Feldstein. They attended an arts academy together, and Winthrop, the quintessential theater kid part, was played by the tenor in a Hollywood Bowl staging of The Music Man with Kristin Chenoweth.
Ben Platt Addressing a Query in an Interesting Way
We had to cut our conversation short because the star of the wonderful new movie Theater Camp did not like a question about that New York Magazine cover. It’s undoubtedly based on our close connection, and we were grateful for the chance to show the genuine love between a homosexual boy and his lady closest friend.
We believe that’s a relationship we’ve seen a few times, although it generally involves a lot of snark or arguing over a guy. We are not sure if we’ve ever seen it portrayed as the focus of a romcom in the manner that this movie, hopefully, makes it feel. And with that as the focal point of how they interact to one other, we just really wanted to acknowledge how important those relationships are. Characteristically, they are a composite of the professors we have had.
We both attended The Adderley School, a performing arts school in Los Angeles, where we met while enrolled in the theater program.
Amos and many of our collective musical directors, conductors, and voice teachers, who reside more in this world of Reiki-like light energy, exhibit some of the ferocity of those teachers. It’s kind of like a parallel world of where the two of us may have ended up had we not chosen the career route of teaching, which is anchored in our extraordinarily long relationship.