Just Do It

Mind Games

by A.D. Amorosi

Mon., Sept. 8, 7 p.m., $45-$118, Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St., 215-238-2100, jewishphilly.com/mindgames

For Marc Salem, mind reading is about potential, not some brand of cheap canard. His off-Broadway show, Mind Games, is an exploration of how similar human beings are to each other and how each of us provides clues to our inner workings. "The show is about the mind — picking up, guiding and influencing people's thoughts," he says. "But I am not a psychic."

Salem's been picking the brains of audience members for a while now, and to loads of acclaim. But how does one go from Havertown to becoming a top-notch mind reader? Salem began as a psychology professor with advanced degrees from UPenn and NYU, with a focus on nonverbal communication. "Education should be entertaining and entertainment should have a curriculum," he says. After a producer saw him lecture and asked if he'd be interested in performing off-Broadway, Salem had a show that ran for 10 months — enough to make him quit teaching.

But Salem knew he had skills before all that. As a child, he was moving and his mother asked which unpacked box her red hat was in. He touched each box, picked one — and sure enough, the red hat was inside. But, he explains, in touching that particular box his mother probably subconsciously knew the hat was there and gave him nonverbal signals — which are the type of things Mind Games relies on.

Ultimately, Salem believes his skill is 50 percent hereditary, 50 percent developmental and based on understanding group dynamics, statistics and nonverbal communication. "I'm a generalist," he says, "just putting together pieces of a puzzle in my mind rapidly." And that's no game.