Welcome back to Hot Takes and Deep Dives. This is Jess. And I want to welcome back my old friend,

maybe my best friend. Now we are. Now we really are. I'm here with Ben Rimmelower. Hi, Jess.

How are you? How are you? I'm good. I'm so happy to be with you. To be with you in person,

this is not a virtual interview. Yes. Thank God. Thank God. You guys absolutely know Ben

Rimmelower. You have been a theater director for your entire career. You are a real housewife's

whisperer. You're reading my Twitter bio. Don't give away my secrets. You're the host of the Broadway

World Podcast. Ben Rimmelower's broken records. Yes. But you definitely know him from his many

appearances on Rony as Luan's long-suffering cabaret director and producer. I'm not a cabaret

producer. They just call me that on the TV show for some reason. Oh, a miscreddit. Yeah, it's always

something very clear to say. Wait, so who's the producer? She is. I mean, people really produce

their own cabaret shows. But you're her director. I'm her director. And you help write the show.

Yes. I do write the show. Yeah. Luan just gives notes.

So I want to start with housewife stuff. And then I want to get into your intake.

You know, I don't know if Luan will listen to this, but I should say we co-write the show,

which is, you know, she'll kill me if she, if I'm trying to steal credit from her.

So you had, I texted you. There was one. I know that you were going to get into why you don't

watch housewives anymore. But you were on quite a few episodes this season. Yes. Yes.

Thank you for texting me. If I hadn't been texted, I wouldn't have known.

You had perhaps the funniest line of being tired. I did. What did I say? Oh, is this fire

island? Yes. Do you remember what you said? I think Sonia was invited. Yeah. Sonia was like,

oh, like, do you want to come out with this? And you're like, say what you said? Well, we,

Luan and I were in rehearsal. And Sonia, I think, was supposed to be there if I, if they were

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