Adria's grandfather, Sam Tannenbaum, was a song-plugger for Irving Berlin who changed his German surname to Tennor to sound more American. Her grandmother taught her all these songs as she grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. She studied acting and directing at New York University's Tisch School for the Arts. Her first role was as a 12-year-old boy talking about porn in Tompkins Square Park with an amnesiac in Hal Hartley's movie, Amateur (1994). With a few more film roles under her belt, Tennor moved to Los Angeles to work in television. There, she also performs her one-woman shows regularly around town, There's Not a Lot of Coat Check Work in LA, Electro Magnetic Stripper, and most recently Strip Search, inspired by her studies in pole dancing with Sheila Kelley at The S Factor Studio. She lives with her restaurateur husband, Claudio Blotta.
