The Check Is in the E-mail

Hilarious true tale lifts C-list actor out of obscurity

Comments (0) By Robrt L. Pela Thursday, Feb 5 2009

It sounds sublime: A C-list television actor receives an e-mail from a con artist who’s posing as the wife of a dead Nigerian leader in need of cash. The actor -- Dean Cameron, star of the Ski School movies and Mark Harmon’s co-star in 1987’s Summer School -- writes back, pretending to be a sexually confused millionaire with a lot of time on his hands. What follows is a nine-month correspondence full of goofy subterfuge and deception. Bored with his lagging career, the actor writes a play about the experience, using the actual e-mails as a duologue between himself and another actor. The play is a global hit.

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It’s all true. Cameron’s The Nigerian Spam Scam Scam lasts just under an hour but, if critics are to be believed, is jammed with laughs and looniness. Originally performed as a workshop production, Spam Scam went on to critical acclaim at Scotland’s 2004 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Upon its return to these shores, a remount of the show ran for nearly four months before launching a tour that will stop at Scottsdale’s Theater 4301.

Sat., Feb. 7, 8 p.m., 2009