The Temperamentals

This hit off-Broadway play tells the story of two men: the communist Harry Hay and the Viennese refugee and fashion designer Rudi Gernreich. The two fall in love while forming one of the first gay-rights organizations in the pre-Stonewall United States. Temperamental was a necessary code word in the early 1950s. Danger was always an underlying presence but with it, a heady, intoxicating secrecy also hung in the air.