TOBI OR THE MEMORY MACHINES Kick-Off Event Announced at The Bridge

Nicole Martinez, operating director of The Bridge, producer/director Jessica Farr, and playwright Caleb Scott will be presenting an evening of local bands, drag performances, and a sneak peek of the show, TOBI or The Memory Machines, a futuristic play with songs, opening later this Fall at The Bridge.

The evening will feature musical acts by The Memory Machines (Afrobeta), Haute Tension, and Shira Lee. Drag performances will happen throughout with acts to be announced. A sneak peek of the show will be performed live and will feature innovative tech elements to be showcased in the production. The event will be emceed by Farr and Scott, and an OPEN BAR will be available to all guests. Entry to this evening of live music and theatre is only $25 per person. Tickets can be purchased online or in cash or credit at the door.

More information about the play TOBI or The Memory Machines and bios of artists participating in the event below:

TOBI or The Memory Machines

by Caleb Scott

What if your favorite song, your first lover, your sister, your mother, all of your most important life experiences, existed only in memory? And what if those memories did not belong to you? What if they were merely the daydreams of a Temporally Omniscient Body Incarnation, wandering in the deserted wilderness of a future without humans?

TOBI or The Memory Machines is a full-length, live performance piece that weaves together music, sound design, video, monologue and narrative storytelling in an exploration of time, identity and memory in today's age of increasingly advanced social technologies.

The play tells the story of Grant, a frustrated musician who travels forward and backward in time, trying to reconstruct a forgotten song from his childhood. Is he the protagonist in the story of his own life, or is he merely an evocation of the shared, universal tropes of our collective history? Perhaps only TOBI, the author of the world that Grant inhabits, can provide the answer.

The narrative arc of the play is guided by the character "TOBI," a genderless, ageless, Artificial Intelligence, who conjures a group of musicians from out of a fragmented cloud of virtual information in order to observe a human moment of camaraderie and artistic creation. Of course, these "human" characters inevitably begin to express the deeper stories of their own personal histories and desires; and as TOBI loses herself in the timeless web of their experiences, she finds herself further and further removed from her initial primary objective: to understand what it means to be human.

Caleb Scott is a writer and actor. His plays and performance pieces have been produced and presented at venues in New York City and around the country, including Classic Stage Company, HERE Arts Center, La MaMa ETC, the Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles, Sandrell Rivers Theater in Miami and the Wooster Group's Performing Garage. As an actor, Caleb has appeared in numerous roles onstage as well as in dozens of commercials, television shows and films, including Point and Shoot, starring opposite Donald Sutherland, and My Freakin' Family on ABC. His writing has appeared or will appear in The Bellevue Literary Review, Nashville Review, Typishly Literary Journal, From Whispers to Roars, Eclipse, Peauxdunque Review, Coffin Bell Journal, Public Poetry Anthology, Swamp Ape Review, Grist, and December Magazine; his first book, U.F.O., was published in 2006 by PowerHouse Books in New York. Caleb's films have screened in festivals all over the world, including the Toronto International Film Festival, Raindance in London, Cinequest in San Jose, Palm Springs International Film Festival and Aesthetica in York, UK. He has been a Finalist for an Academy of Motion Pictures Nicholl Fellowship, a Recipient of the Silver Palm Award for his work in South Florida theater, a Nominee for Best Actor and Best Writer by the Kinsale Shark Awards in the UK, and his plays have been selected as Finalists for the Playwrights Foundation Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the Eugene O'Neill Theater's National Playwrights Conference. Caleb is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the recipient of a Dartmouth Senior Fellowship in Writing. He lives in Miami, Florida.

Jessica Farr is a Miami native playwright, actor, director, teacher, arts administrator and stand-up comedian. She is an alumnus of Fordham University Lincoln Center (B.A. Theatre), and Moscow Art Theatre (MXAT- Performance) and New World School of the Arts High School. She was a former Administrative Manager and Assistant Development Director at City Theatre as well as Tour Director and Playwright for their Short Cuts Tour. Jessica has directed for Summer Shorts at The Adrienne Arsht Center and is a former company member and Associate Director of Mad Cat Theatre Company. She is part of the teaching artist staff at Miami Theater Center. She is a voice over talent at The Kitchen and VOA Voice Studios. You may have heard her voice in original HBO and Netflix programing. She is a proud member of Actors' Equity Association. Recent theatrical credits include: King Lear (Goneril), Three Sisters of Weehawken (Theatre Lab - Boca), Why Not? With Richard Nixon (Mad Cat- Miami Shores), and The Flick (Mad Cat- Miami Shores) for which she and her cast mates were nominated for Best Ensemble at The 40th Carbonell Awards. Her plays have been produced nationally including recent productions in Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, California, and New York. Her play Blow Me, inspired by the life of Isabella Blow, was written up in Vogue UK. She has performed stand-up at venues such as The Comedy Store LA, Ha-Ha Comedy Club LA, Flappers Burbank, and The Improv LA. She has written/directed for Comedy Central's South Beach Comedy Festival. She was a Miami New Times Mastermind Artist in 2014. Her play NADIE (in honor of Reefa) was a finalist for City Theatre's National Short Play Contest 2014. She is a 2017-2019 Miami Dade County Playwright Development Program grantee currently working with Master Playwright Sheri Wilner.

Nicole Martinez, THE BRIDGE: The Bridge is a Knight funded, non-profit center for community outreach through music and the arts. The venue provides subsidized studio, rehearsal and event rentals as well as professional recording services. The Bridge is committed to serving South Florida's musicians, artists, performers, filmmakers and activists and has proudly supported theater groups, including City Theater and Mad Cat Theater Productions.

Tickets are available online (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tobi-kick-off-party-tickets-55995362637?utm-medium=discovery&utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&aff=escb&utm-source=cp&utm-term=listing) and will be available for purchase (cash or credit) at the door. Tickets are $25.

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