Elmhurst native shares what working with David Byrne is like in River North interactive project

CHICAGO (WLS) -- David Byrne's "Theater of the Mind" is packing in crowds in River North for the interactive experience.

Director Andrew Scoville grew up in Elmhurst, and said working with the former Talking Heads frontman is as mind-blowing as the show.

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"It's a wild ride; the show is big. The show is complicated," Scoville said. "Behind all these walls there's a lot going on."

He said groups come in every 15 minutes.

"The technology is very unique for what's typical of theater because we're not just running one show start to back. These rooms have to be set to go for the next group as they come in," Scoville said. "It kind of moves more like a ride. You load up a ride. The ride starts to go, next group comes in. You load it up; it starts to go," Scoville said.

It can be difficult to predict how the audience will react.

"It's not scary; you don't have to be afraid of being onstage or in the same room with the actors," Scoville said. "We really do invite the audience to bring their full selves to the show. So when you are here, doing you, we hope the guide leads you through in a way that you really understand how to participate in a way that's gonna make the show really resonate for you."

The show is working well in Chicago.

"I think there's a curiosity here. There's an adventurous spirit, with the people who are coming out to see the show," Scoville said. "I do hope that people leave and they feel that way, they feel like their presence here has made a difference, the small group they come through with, they feel some sort of bond with, unified with, and they take that out into the world, a feeling that they matter."

The show is presented by the Goodman Theatre in a River North space transformed for the concept.

"I think for a lot of people, theater, they're as likely to go see theater as they are to take clog dancing lessons. It feels like this weird offense other people do, right?" said Susan Booth, Goodman Theatre artistic director. "We're so schooled in this notion that theater happens in stuffy dark rooms, where you sit in the velvet seats, you don't talk too much. Don't crinkle your candy. But theater is so much more than that."

Booth reflected on working with Byrne.

"He's like the ultimate welcome mat. People say, 'David Byrne's doing something? David Byrne made a thing?' I'll go see that thing," she said.

Booth did offer a warning.

"You know somebody had to step out because they'd taken a gummy before they went in. You don't want to do this show high," she said.

"Theater of the Mind" has been extended to July 12 by popular demand.

Byrne hopes it becomes a landmark performance in Chicago.