Spider Rabbit

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.

Dan Safer and Tony Torn co-created the wildly acclaimed Ubu Sings Ubu. Between the two of them, they have worked with Reza Abdoh, Richard Foreman, Mabou Mines, Pigface, Genesis P-Orridge, 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. Torn was in the remake of Stepford Wives and Safer has over 50 tattoos.

Dan Safer is Senior Lecturer and Director of Dance Programs at MIT and the Artistic Director of dance/theater company Witness Relocation (WR). He has directed/choreographed WR shows all over the place, from the back rooms 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 halfway through a show and almost killed him. WR is a resident company at La MaMa. 

Dan Safer and Tony Torn are frequent collaborators, most notably on the notorious Ubu Sings Ubu. Safer’s recent choreography includes Hoi Polloi’s productions of Family by Celine Song and Winning Is Winning; Jedermann starring Lars Eidinger at the Salzburg Festival; and direction and choreography for Chuck Mee’s Aristotle Thinks Again with Great Jones Rep. 

Safer’s past work has been seen at Dance Theater Workshop, BAM, Danspace Project, Les Subsistances (Lyon, France), Patravadi Theater (Bangkok), an opera house in Transylvania, and more. He has collaborated with Robert M. Johanson, Ridge Theater, Ash K. Tata, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Stefanie Batten Bland, and Mary Overlie. In the ‘90s he was a member of Anohni’s Blacklips Performance Cult under the name Hellena Handbasket. Artforum called him “pure expressionistic danger” and Time Out NY called him “a purveyor of lo-fi mayhem.” He 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.

Biography: MIT Music and Theater Arts
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Technical instructor in the MIT Music and Theater Arts program, Christian Frederickson is a violist, composer, and sound designer who specializes in live music performance for theater and dance. He was a founding member of the instrumental band Rachel’s, who released six albums between 1995 and 2003 and toured extensively in North America and Europe. As a solo artist, Frederickson has released seven albums since 2011, which are all available on Bandcamp. He teaches sound design and podcasting at MIT.

Biography: MIT Music and Theater Arts
Website: christianfrederickson.com
Social: Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp | X | YouTube

Tony Torn is an actor and director based in New York. His more than 100 stage and screen credits include “Ubu” in Ubu Sings Ubu (also adapted and co-directed), “Paul Swan’ in Paul Swan is Dead and Gone at Torn Page, “Cyclops/Mother” in Suzan-Lori Parks’ Venus at The Signature Theater, “Rusty Trawler” in Breakfast at Tiffany’s on Broadway, “Falstaff”, “Panderus” and “Caliban” in Oregon Shakespeare Company’s Play On! series of translated Shakespeare plays at Classic Stage Company, “Lear/Oswald” in Karin Coonrod’s experimental staging of Shakespeare’s King Lear at La Mama, and “JG Conwell Senior” as a member of the original cast of in the immersive show Life and Trust. He has performed in multiple shows with legendary experimental theater artists Richard Foreman and Reza Abdoh. He was a founding director of Reverend Billy and The Church of Stop Shopping, and his recent staging of Romina Paula’s The Whole of Time was described as “beautifully directed” in The New Yorker. He recently appeared as “The Toymaster” on NBC’s hit series The Blacklist, “Sister Jim” in the Netflix comedy series Teenage Bounty Hunters, Larry Hughes in Law and Order SVU and Lev Sussman on FBI: Most Wanted. Upcoming, he will be seen opposite Willem Dafoe in Kent Jones’ feature Late Fame and with Eric Andre and John Cena in Little Brother for Netflix. He manages Torn Page, a salon space and classroom in Chelsea dedicated to the artistic legacy of his parents, Rip Torn and Geraldine Page.

Website: tonytorn.com

Jared Michael Nickerson is a Grammy-nominated Bold Soul, Rock & Roll Brother from Ohio. He experienced his first taste of live performance at local high school talent shows, one of the “labs” along with the church and basement dens of the legendary Dayton funk scene which spawned the Ohio Players, Slave, Roger Troutman & Zapp, Sun, Dayton, Steve Arrington’s Hall of Fame, Faze-O, and members of Heatwave. 

Nickerson continued his musical development at the University of Notre Dame under the direction of Father Wiskerchen, (noted for his development of three-fourths of the “Chicago” horn section). After graduating with a B.A. in Business Management, he moved to Boston, studied for two years at the New England Conservatory of Music before embarking on his professional music career with a local seven-piece funk band, Hypertension.

Nickerson has toured extensively performing at venues such as the Toronto Skydome, Red Rocks, the L.A. Forum, the Oakland Coliseum, England’s Brixton Academy, Brighton Dome & Reading Festivals, The Beacon Theater, Lincoln Center and Madison Square Garden.

Website: burntsugarindex.com/artist/jared-michael-nickerson
Social: Facebook | Instagram 

Directed by Dan Safer

Starring Tony Torn

Written by Michael McClure

Original music by Christian Frederickson and Jared Michael Nickerson

Talkin’ B’way: La MaMa Presents Michael McClure’s SPIDER RABBIT Starring Tony Torn, Directed by Dan Safer, March 26 – April 12

Broadway World: Tony Torn to Star in Michael McClure’s SPIDER RABBIT at La MaMa

Theater Mania: La MaMa to Present a Rare Revival of Michael McClure’s Spider Rabbit