| Reported by Ryan Hatfield |

NEW YORK, N.Y. — The show must go on, this man’s diet consists of only tomatoes thrown at him during his one man show.

Richard Bello’s one man show, “Reaching to the Umpire,” premiered Off-Broadway earlier this month. While the production has made almost no profit whatsoever, Bello still manages to put food on the table of his apartment he shares with six other people in the heart of Brooklyn.

“Rich also comes home with several plastic bags and half a dozen props,” said Al Stanza, Bello’s roommate. “The bottoms of the bags are always dripping tomato juice and his clothing is strained red, but he makes a mean gazpacho these days!”

“Reaching to the Umpire” sees Bello playing a disgraced baseball player as he struggles with alcohol, marriage, and the “restrictive” rules of modern baseball. Bello plays every single role.

“My main reason for creating the show was that there’s not enough innings in a game,” said Bello, seeds and juice dripping off his face. “I decided to protest this by making my play eighteen acts, several scenes each. I thought people would love it but they just throw tomatoes at me. I thought my lines ‘fuck baseball, fuck New York, and fuck you, audience’ would make theater history. Alas, I still get some sweet tomatoes out of it.”

“The play was a disgrace,” said one patron, “There’s a scene where he plays a baby and actually shits his pants on stage and shows it to us. A play about hating baseball in the state it was born in was a foolish idea. I hit him right between the eyes with a ripe mato. Go Mets!”

The play is expected to be cancelled later this month after its 8th show. The New York Fruit Fair is happening on the same day right across the street from the theater. It’s expected Bello will have food to last until 2021.