BWW Exclusive: A Look Back at Ben Rimalower's Celebrity Visits! BAD WITH MONEY and PATTI ISSUES Close in San Fran Tonight
To celebrate Ben Rimalower's final night at Oasis in San Francisco tonight performing "Bad with Money" and "Patti Issues", take a look back at all the celebrities who came to see him in New York over the last year. After tonight, he continues both shows at The Duplex through April 29. Scroll down for photos!
BAD WITH MONEY - Ben Rimalower's new play about spending beyond his means - and PATTI ISSUES, which ran for a year in New York and subsequently toured the country and abroad - is finishing up a spring tour in California. PATTI ISSUES, which was a New York Times "Critics Pick," explores his obsession with Broadway diva Patti LuPone and his relationship with his troubled gay father.
Ben's addiction has driven him to extreme lengths all his life. In BAD WITH MONEY he charts his sometimes hilarious, sometimes harrowing struggle to overcome his problem - or get rich trying. BAD WITH MONEY delves into deep personal territory with the story of his struggle with debt-a journey that takes him through drug addiction, prostitution, fraud and multiple betrayals. In this gripping play-by-play of some his biggest mistakes and their consequences, Rimalower offers a no-holds-barred self-portrait of an addict, and casts light on one of the last societal taboos. "People tend to be familiar now with alcohol and drug addiction-and I've got those too," the writer-performer says. "But spending money I don't have is really my drug of choice. And considering how many people suffer from the same problem, it's staggering how seldom it's discussed."
When Ben's debut play Patti Issues opened in 2012, it became a must-see show in the downtown theater scene, ultimately running for 14 months and garnering praise from attendees such as Alan Cumming, Tony Kushner, Michael Kors, Justin Vivian Bond, Perez Hilton and Ms. LuPone herself. ("The show's fantastic," she said. "It's really wonderful. I was moved.") The New York Times praised Patti Issues for its "well-honed script with an engagingly spontaneous delivery and a nose for sharp, observational comedy." It was hailed as "endearing, drolly written and performed with heaps of charisma" (The New Yorker) and "meticulously scripted and executed, with poignant punch lines that deliver laughs, emotion and insight" (Time Out New York). Rimalower has performed Patti Issues in Australia, Germany and Great Britain, as well as across the country in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Miami Beach, Provincetown, Fire Island and more.
For more, go to benrimalower.com.
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