David Byrne has been a busy man as of late. The 67-year-old Talking Heads singer has spent the last two years sharing his one-of-a-kind American Utopia performance with fans across the country and on Broadway, and will now look to launch a new kind of “immersive experience” in Denver next summer.
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Byrne, along with writer Mala Gaonkar, has developed what’s being described as an “immersive theatre experience” when their new collaborative production, Theater of the Mind, premieres at Denver, CO’s Denver Center for the Performing Arts in August 2020.
According to the announcement, Byrne and Gaonkar’s production will be that of a 15,000-square-foot immersive experience where sixteen audience members at a time will journey through self-reflection, discovery, and imagination, inspired by and grounded in neuroscience. The limited number of just 16 fans who can take in the experience at a time, and will be led by “a guide” whose stories are inspired by the creators’ lives. Attendees will be encouraged to explore how they perceive the physical world through sensory experiments that reveal the inner mysteries of the brain by use of sight, touch, taste, and sound.
“We are so pleased to be premiering ‘Theater of the Mind’ in Denver with such wonderful partners at the DCPA.” Byrne said of his latest undertaking in a statement. “I have long had an interest in creating something that incorporated the sensory experiments we often read about in a way that was entertaining and engaging, but still gave people an experience that was visceral and profound.”
“For a few years, David and I partnered with several cognitive neuroscience labs to see how some of the most basic human intuitions determine how humans react,” Gaonkar also added. “What we concluded was the experiments and ideas of the labs we partnered with, several of which we embedded in our narrative, seemed as engaging as any piece of theatre. ‘Theater of the Mind’ will challenge the ever-changing reality written in our minds and I am thrilled for audiences to think of science and theatre in a new way.”
The announcement comes following Byrne’s American Utopia landing on Broadway as the theatrical rendition of Byrne’s 2018 tour debuted at New York City’s Hudson Theatre late last month.
Click here to learn more about Theater of the Mind ahead of its summer 2020 debut.
