Chicago will have a new entertainment space that will enable you to “step into a new world of totally different experiences” from those you usually find in a theater or concert hall. Presented by Goodman Theatre as part of its 100th anniversary celebration and created by a team including musician and polymath artist David Byrne, Theater of the Mind will open next spring in a River North office building.
“It’s all inside your head, but is any of it real?” Theater of the Mind will "expose the unreliability of your senses" and provide experiences you'll see, feel, taste and hear, inspired by historical and neuroscience research.
Byrne and the show’s director, Andrew Scoville, described the new project at a media preview this week. Theater of the Mind will be a storytelling and sensory experience that will take 16 guests at a time through a series of rooms where a Guide will help them explore the world through sensory experiments that reveal your brain’s inner mysteries. The 15,000 foot space will be divided into separate rooms, each offering a different experience, led by the Guide. Actors are auditioning for the Guide roles.
Tickets for the 75-minute experience will be timed every 15 minutes on performance days, beginning Wednesday, March 11, 2026. Theater of the Mind will be staged Tuesday evenings through Sunday afternoons through May 31. Goodman artistic director Susan V. Booth, who introduced the creative panel at the media preview, said they anticipate that Theater of the Mind will be extended well beyond that date.
The work is being created by former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne (creator of the 2019 Broadway production American Utopia) with writer Mala Gaonkar, a technology investor whose focus has been on multidisciplinary thinking. Byrne described how his own research in neuroscience inspired the project. Theater of the Mind will be directed by Scoville, an Elmhurst native whose theater work has emphasized integrating science and technology into theatrical experiences. Technology director will be Heidi Boisvert, PhD, an interdisciplinary artist and creative technologist.
The venue lobby will feature a café and merchandise shop. Theater of the Mind will be presented on the first floor of the Reid-Murdoch Building at 333 N. LaSalle St. just north of the river. The seven-story building, completed in 1914, is a National Historic Landmark and a Chicago Landmark. The building formerly housed Chicago’s traffic courts and was a makeshift hospital in July 1915 after the S.S. Eastland capsized in the river at the Clark Street bridge just across from the building. The disaster resulted in 844 deaths of passengers and crew.
Theater of the Mind had its world premiere on August 31, 2022, at York Street Yards in Denver, a production of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. The show ran through January 2023.
Tickets (66-$96, subject to change) will be available for sale starting at 10am Friday, November 7, at the Goodman Theatre Box Office, 170 N. Dearborn St., by calling 312.443.3800 or by purchasing online at TheaterOfTheMindChicago.com. Theater of the Mind is recommended for ages 12-13 and up.
