Compiled by LAURA WITSENHAUSEN Associate Editor BENJAMIN PLATT, a student at the Adderley School in Pacific Palisades since the age of 3, is currently appearing in Tony Kushner’s musical ‘Caroline, or Change’ at the Ahmanson Theatre. He has been studying at the Adderley School in the Highlands for seven years. Benjamin, 11, is a sixth grader at Sinai Akiba Academy. He lives with his parents, Julie and Marc, and four siblings in Westwood. Platt plays Noah Gellman, a character roughly based on playwright Kushner as a boy, in the musical, which runs at the downtown theater through Sunday. He and Sy Adamowsky trade off sharing the role over the course of the run. ‘I can kind of relate to Noah,’ says Benjamin, ‘when he gets really mad at Caroline [the main character, played by Tonya Pinkins, who works as a maid for Noah’s family] and says things he doesn’t mean. I’m kind of impulsive like that, too.’ Benjamin likes the fact that the musical, set in 1963, is made up of pop, show tunes, R&B and ballads. ‘I love singing and acting,’ says Benjamin, ‘I like getting to be someone else and get away from reality for a few hours.’ ‘He is one of the most passionate, dedicated, selfless, gracious young actors I’ve ever come across,’ says Janet Adderley. ‘Early on, he had a huge facility for subtext. He really found his own inner voice and ability to connect with the emotions of a character’why he was doing what he was doing, and why words were not enough and he needed to break into song. He is a director’s dream and I just adore him. The sky’s the limit for him.’ Ben made his professional debut at The Hollywood Bowl as Winthrop Paroo in ‘The Music Man’ with Eric McCormack and Kristen Chenoweth and returned last summer as Young Patrick in ‘Mame’ with Michele Lee. He has appeared in two Reprise! productions, ‘Merrily We Roll Along’ (Frank, Jr.) and ‘Assassins’ (Billy) and appeared in ‘The Snow Queen’ (Alexander) at the Falcon Theatre. Ben will appear in the evening show at 7:30 p.m. Sunday for his final performance in L.A. and then go with the cast to San Francisco for a five-week run at the Curran Theatre. o o o NICOLE MARIE MELAS, a sophomore at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, was named a Sarah and James Bowdoin Scholar for being in the top 10 percent of her class the previous academic year. o o o JESSICA ESTHER SHULMAN, a junior at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is studying with the Institute for the International Education of Students (IES) program in London this year. Jessica, a graduate of Santa Monica High School, is the daughter of Terri Miller and Andrew Marlowe of Pacific Palisades and Janis and Larry Shulman of Beverly Hills. o o o SAMUEL M. MILDER, the son of Michael Milder and Maureen McGee, is spending his junior year abroad through the Bates College Junior Year Abroad program. Samuel, a Spanish major at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, is studying through Hamilton College in Madrid, Spain for the fall semester, and through Brethren Colleges in Barcelona, Spain, for the winter semester. He is a 2002 graduate of Concord High School.
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