When the LA wildfires burned last year, playwright Dave Harris watched as everyone’s “crisis personalities” emerged. “Mine,” he recalls, “was that I was incredibly horny.” During that period, when the power was out and he could see flames in two directions, he busied himself with three activities: “Having a lot of sex with my girlfriend, cooking all the food in our fridge, and finishing this play.”
Set in a failing strip club where nothing is off limits, Tender is as preoccupied with sex as its creator is. “I have always been obsessed with sex,” Harris says, “since before I knew what it was. The four places I feel the most myself are writing, sex, cooking and dancing.” His character descriptions dictate that all four performers for this show need to be astonishingly good looking: young hot, dad hot, arrogant hot, and inaccessibly beautiful. “We’re really just trying to gird everyone’s loins,” Harris laughs.
