Learn The Art Of The Con Game

You’ve no doubt heard about them, and perhaps even encountered them — maybe in travels abroad or on the streets of Manhattan. Or perhaps you’ve met them online, masters of the craft who lurk behind opaque veils of false impersonation.

Whatever the setting, the messenger is usually the same. He or she is a smooth talking operator who feigns friendship, offers compliments with a smile and then surreptitiously and subtly manages to part you from your hard-earned money before you even realize you’ve been had.

Meet the grifter, the con man, the rip-off artist, the scammer, the schemer. They come bearing names like Ponzi or Madoff, and while they exude supreme confidence and charisma, their real skill-set is a lack of consciousness or morals and a truly devious talent for deceit.

But if you’ve ever fallen victim to one these con artists yourself, victims take heart. You can now learn all their tricks for yourself.

From March 24 to April 3, Bay Street Theater will offer “The Grift,” an immersive, interactive theatrical experience that will take place at various locations throughout Sag Harbor. Part theater, part game, “The Grift” features a group of actors posing as confidence men and women who will teach audience members the art of the steal at stops along the way. While scams with names like “Pig In The Poke,” “Round-The-Corner” and “The Money Swap” will be featured, in “The Grift,” the goal is not to rip you off, but rather teach you how these schemes work and give you the skills to recognize them in action so you can avoid being victimized next time.

Or you may prefer to file the knowledge away in order to perform these ruses yourself on a future unsuspecting mark. How you use the information, notes Tom Salaman, creator of “The Grift,” is ultimately up to you.

“You are trained to recognize and then execute these cons,” Salaman said. “You’re empowered and can use that information any way you want. If you want to be a pickpocket, that takes a lot of hand-eye coordination and skill, but these are things you can execute.”

Relax, there’s no need to hide your money in your sock at this point. Salaman is not a professional rip-off artist by trade, but he is a writer and director who enjoys designing experiences in which audiences can get involved. He first began exploring the world of immersive theater back in 2005, long before Punchdrunk’s popular “Sleep No More” production took up residence in the fictional McKittrick Hotel on West 27th Street in Manhattan.

“I came up with a show called ‘Accomplice’ with my sister,” he said. “It was an adventure that sent a small audience to locations all over New York City — a noir-ish crime thriller that you were in the middle of.”

Salaman explained that in “Accomplice,” participants found themselves dropped into the middle of a crime story that took place across the city. With guidance from actors who would lead them in solving a mystery, the group would visit well-known locations along the way, like Chinatown or the Brooklyn Bridge. The production caught on and became a hit.

“Time Out New York came and wrote a two-page piece on the show, and then tons of people were coming,” Salaman recalled. “I will say, 17 years later, immersive theater now is not substantially different than what I did, which is give audiences the ability to roam around spaces. Anything that takes place not in a proper theater is immersive. I think a lot of the DNA of immersive theater can be traced to ‘Accomplice’ and ‘Sleep No More.’”

While he has become something of an aficionado of immersive theater, Salaman, who also created the interactive “Goosebumps Alive” experiences in London, came to the genre with a background in film, not theater. He also used to live in New York City, but like many city folk, relocated to the East End in March 2020 in order to escape the pandemic, and he hasn’t left since.

“I let my lease go in the city,” he said. “I felt like this is a really good place to be. It was a unique circumstance, so I may as well be in a house with space and air and not walk the streets with others. There are certain things you miss — the action of films, concerts, theaters — but I’m so lucky to have it.”

Now, Salaman will be the one bringing the local theater scene to life with “The Grift,” a show that was previously produced in both London and San Diego, where it premiered in 2015. Though he has never before worked with Bay Street, Salaman notes there were some connections that persuaded him to approach the theater about partnering on this project — not only Bay Street’s proximity to where he’s now living, but also the fact that the theater’s artistic director, Scott Schwartz, has worked at San Diego’s La Jolla Playhouse where “The Grift” premiered.

“Many years ago, I saw one of Scott’s shows there, and that may have prompted me to contact them,” said Salaman. “I said, ‘Have you ever been interested in immersive theater?’ We started a discussion a couple months ago.”

When it comes to designing a fun and intriguing immersive theater experience, Salaman maintains that the most important aspect reflects the mantra of the real estate industry: location, location, location.

“One of the touchstones of immersive theater is these unique locations — these weird, out of the way spots,” said Salaman, explaining that previous productions of “The Grift” took place in a townhouse, a bar and an art gallery.

“The big hurdle is to find unique and interesting locations willing to participate,” he added. “It’s a very small, intimate audience and we’re not making a big scene. It’s meant to feel, I don’t want to say real, but you’re at a table in a bar with an actor. That’s what’s happening. It’s people in regular spaces.”

For audiences, Salaman said much of the fun is in being surprised by the locations they end up visiting over the course of the evening.

“It’s always secret where you feel you’re getting the VIP treatment,” Salaman noted. “But one thing I’ll say, we’re using the rooftop bar of the Sag Harbor Cinema.”

Exploring the world of con artists is not the kind of show that would naturally occur to many people, but for Salaman, it was a theme that intrigued him given its potential for audience participation. It’s also a topic that has been trending in popular culture lately.

“I’m always trying to think of models that will allow for audience engagement. I don’t remember where it first struck me, but I thought it would be so much fun to learn how to be a con man,” Salaman said. “I read today about cryptocurrency and sweetheart scams — people are getting people to give them money and fall in love. We’re all fascinated with con men. Right now on Netflix, there is ‘Tinder Swindler,’ and ‘Inventing Anna’ about Anna Delvey.

“I wondered if you could do a show about a con man. That’s a fun thing to participate in,” he said. “I want my stuff to be things people can participate in and you can teach people how to do scams. It reverses the rolls. The audience, as opposed to being a victim, is empowered.”

When asked about his familiarity with the many scams that are out there, Salaman admits that when he started creating “The Grift,” he didn’t know any more about them than the average mark. Though he admits that he once fell prey to an email scammer purporting to be PayPal and unwittingly gave up his account’s passwords.

But “The Grift” is not focused on the digital age of rip-offs. Instead, it delves into the art of the deal and takes a historical look at some of the time-tested scams that have survived for centuries.

“The Bitcoin thing, that goes back 150 years,” he said. “A guy meets a woman and they fall in love. Then he says, ‘My mother is ill, having trouble with whatever and I need money.’ These con artists have high acting abilities and low conscience.

“I did a deep dive and saw that some scams are very sophisticated,” he added. “The real challenge was finding ones you could teach an audience in five minutes and they could learn, understand and execute.”

When “The Grift” arrives in Sag Harbor, Salaman explains that each show will be limited to 50 people, who will be broken into five teams of 10. In addition to learning the various scams at familiar locations around the village, participants will also hear some local references and folklore that Salaman has worked into the script.

“I tweak it, not to change the core of things, but to make it feel organic to the place where it takes place,” he said. “There’s both legit and totally invented history, but it should feel in the moment. There are references to people who lived here, the Maidstone and The American Hotel and Lunch [aka Lobster Roll] and a timeline to this show. Lunch opened in 1964, and there’s a story told in the show of something that happened there in the late ’60s.”

Ultimately, Salaman said the real trick is to craft the show so that it’s easy for the audience to get involved — or not.

“They can participate if they want to, but they don’t have to if they don’t want to. Some people want to watch and not dive in,” Salaman said. “The other thing is to make the audience feel they have agency, but not let them take over the show.”

For that reason, maintaining control in a production like this where there is a fair amount of unscripted interaction between audience and actor is vital.

“It’s very important to cast good actors for this. They’re responsible for steering the ship. It’s scripted, but they have to react to anything that audience members say,” Salaman explained. “They have to be natural and in the moment. While it feels like everyone is involved, they’re still in charge.”

Just like any good con artist would be. And at the end of “The Grift,” audience members will go home secure in the knowledge that they have become a bit more savvy about the wily ways of the world and are less likely to be victimized in the future. An important skillset in this age of deceit.

“More and more people take advantage of each other and there are always avenues to do these things,” Salaman said. “When people in charge and politicians are bald-faced liars and have no conscience about lying in order to serve their own needs, that sends a message that you can lie to get ahead.

“I’ve known people in life and my career who are complete frauds and they don’t have a conscience about it. I think it takes a certain sociopath to do that sort of thing,” he said.

But when it comes to victimhood, there is also the problem of people doubling down on false beliefs and refusing to give up on them, even in light of incontrovertible evidence, as in, say, a purportedly stolen election or a military campaign to allegedly liberate the citizens in a neighboring country.

“There’s something about people who are so locked into their own beliefs that facts won’t convince them or get them to admit they’re wrong,” said Salaman. “ You can’t change them.”

But maybe with “The Grift,” you can at least share a skillset that will keep them from falling into the next trap that will inevitably come along.

Bay Street Theater and Diabolical Muse Productions’ presentation of “The Grift” in Sag Harbor begins Thursday, March 24, and continues through Sunday, April 3, with 12 shows over the course of the two-week run. Written and directed by Tom Salaman, joining “The Grift” are cast members Ally Callaghan (Wendy), Elena Faverio (Jackie), Rachel Feldman (Eloise), Edward Kassar (Hammer), Joe Pallister (Danny), Gabriel Portuondo (Narrator) and Jonathan Silver (Grady). Tickets start at $39 at baystreet.org or 631-725-9500.