Tony Torn to Star in Michael McClure's SPIDER RABBIT at La MaMa

La MaMa will present a rare revival of Spider Rabbit by beat poet, novelist, and Obie-winning playwright Michael McClure (1932–2020). This new production reunites two living legends of New York's experimental theater scene, performer Tony Torn and director Dan Safer, following their collaboration Ubu Sings Ubu. Performances of Spider Rabbit run March 26 – April 12, 2026 at La MaMa's The Club.

First written in 1971, Spider Rabbit is an absurdist, anti-war, gargoyle cartoon that feels increasingly relevant over 50 years later. It's a radical, expressionistic, surreal journey – an episode of Pee Wee's Playhouse that turns into a poignant tragedy, that then turns into a howl against brutality.

Spider Rabbit, and the work of Michael McClure, have a special connection to Tony Torn. His father, the stage and screen star Rip Torn (1931–2019), was an early champion of McClure's plays. In fact, Rip Torn won his second Obie award in 1968 for directing McClure's The Beard, which depicts an imagined sexual encounter between Hollywood sex symbol Jean Harlow and the outlaw Billy the Kid. It caused censorship uproars wherever it was staged.

Among other collaborations, Rip went on to produce a celebrated New York production of Spider Rabbit in 1980 at the Greenwich House Theater, which starred the “the quintessential Downtown figure” (New York Times) Taylor Mead (1924–2013). As a teenager, Tony Torn witnessed Mead's unforgettable performance. It left him disturbed and utterly inspired.

Between the two of them, Dan Safer and Tony Torn have worked with Reza Abdoh, Richard Foreman, Mabou Mines, Pigface, Anohni's Blacklips Performance Kult, made choreography for the Queen of Thailand's birthday party, gogo danced at Squeezebox and Jackie 60, performed on Broadway, at BAM, and Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris, among all sorts of other people, places, and things.