August 1, 2026

Spider Rabbit

Tony Torn
| Under the Radar Festival

January 8-12, 2026

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[Program tbd]

Runtime: tbd

As Part of
Under the radar Festival

A surreal, comic psycho-fantasia —
Pee-Wee’s Playhouse gone bloody and brutal.

“Spider Rabbit” is a play by poet and Obie award winning playwright Michael McClure. Written in 1971, it is an “absurdist anti war gargoyle cartoon” that feels increasingly relevant 50+ years later. It is a radical, expressionistic, surreal journey that feels like an episode of Pee Wee’s Playhouse turning into a poignant tragedy turning into a howl against brutality. This new production, directed by Dan Safer and starring Tony Torn, features sound design and music by Christian Frederickson (Rachel’s), original music by Jared Michael Nickerson & V. Jeffrey Smith (Burnt Sugar the Arkestra), and expressionistic lighting by Jay Ryan.

Credits

TONY TORN / spider rabbit / video / costume
DAN SAFER / director / set / costume / props

CHRISTIAN FREDERICKSON / sound design / original music
JARED MICHAEL NICKERSON & V. JEFFREY SMITH / original music
JAY RYAN / lights / set / special fx
GERALD TORN / props
JOSEPH LARK-RILEY / props / special fx
LEE ANN BROWN / a vision
AEON ANDREAS / vision make up design
SOPHIE ANCIVAL / producer

VOICES
LARS EIDINGER / narration voice over
TOM FITZPATRICK / beast sounds
ANNE NONNEMACHER / soprano

The artist

Dan Safer
@dansafer

bio

Dan Safer (director, etc) got kicked out of high school for a year, used to be a go-go dancer, and once choreographed the Queen of Thailand’s Birthday Party. He is a choreographer / director / performer / teacher. Dan and Tony Torn are frequent collaborators, notably on the notorious “Ubu Sings Ubu”. His dance/theater company Witness Relocation performs all over, from the back of bars in NYC to Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris to a giant leaky warehouse in Poland where a light fell off the grid during a show and almost killed him. WR is a resident company at La MaMa. Recent work includes Spider Rabbit with Tony Torn (La MaMa, 2026); Particles, Fields, and The Void, a duet with Thomas F. DeFrantz (in development); choreography for Hoi Polloi’s Family by Celine Song; Jedermann at the Salzburg Festival; and Aristotle Thinks Again with Great Jones Rep. Past shows at DTW, BAM, Danspace Project, Les Subsistances (Lyon, France), Patravadi Theater (Bangkok), an opera house in Transylvania, and more.

Tony Torn
@t0nyt0rn

bio

Tony Torn (spider rabbit, etc) Recent Stage: Lear/Oswald in Shakespeare’s King Lear, Directed and Adapted by Karin Coonrod at La Mama ETC; Mr. Slocum/Mr. Rooney in Beckett’s All That Fall, and Henry in Maria Irene Fornes’ Mud, Directed by JoAnne Akalaitis at Mabou Mines; Doktor/Grandmother in Büchner’s Woyzeck, Adapted by Lukas Papenfusscline and Directed by Jesse Rasmussen at Torn Page; The Client in Bernard-Marie Koltès’ In The Solitude of Cotton Fields, Directed and Translated by Amin Erfani on Pier 45 for the Down To Earth Festival; Ensemble in Michael Gordon’s The Forest of Metal Objects, Directed by Paul Lazar and Annie-B Parson at The Cloisters for Met Live Arts… Tony is known for working extensively with experimental theater makers Reza Abdoh and Richard Foreman, as one of the founding directors of Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, playing Rusty Trawler in Breakfast at Tiffany’s on Broadway, and creating and starring in Ubu Sings Ubu with Dan Safer. He manages Torn Page, a private event space named in honor of his parents Rip Torn and Geraldine Page.