Interview: Noam Tomaschoff, ‘Our Little Secret The 23andMe Musical’

Ahead of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024 we’re chatting with a range of creatives who will be heading to the city over August to find out more about their shows. Today we’re chatting with Noam Tomaschoff about her piece, Our Little Secret: The 23andMe Musical.

Can you tell us a bit about you and your career so far..

Hello hello, my name is Noam Tomaschoff, and I am the writer and performer of Our Little Secret! I grew up the only child of two loving parents (more on that in a bit) in Toronto, Canada and discovered a love of the theatre when I wandered into a summer camp production of “Mamma Mia” and they didn’t let me leave. I went on to theatre school at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, thought I peaked as an actor when I played Farmer Brown in a tour of the classic children’s musical “Click Clack Moo,” and finally, moved to LA and sacrificed my soul and sanity for three years to make a film about my love of the theatre called “Tankhouse,” starring two of my heroes, Christopher Lloyd and Richard Kind. That was my life until a few summers ago, when fate grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and threw me into a reality upending wormhole that resulted in this show!

What is your show about?

Our Little secret is a solo musical that tells the true story of when I ordered a DNA test on a lark a few summers ago, and discovered that my parents aren’t quite who I thought they were, and oh, surprise! I’m not actually an only child, but actually have 35 half siblings all across North America.... I can’t say more! But the show is a blend of comedy, drama, music, confession, and communion, taking the audience through my and my family’s journey of genetic discovery right up until the present day.

What was the inspiration for the show and what’s the development process been to get to this stage?

As the revelations about my genetics and heritage were rocking my world, I quickly realized that I was going to have to create something out of this experience, or I wasn’t going to make it out in one piece. Luckily, my best friends from high school and I are still in close contact, and we LOVE musicals-we performed in them, sang them around the piano instead of playing Mario Kart, and even wrote and produced one as kids!

I got together with Ryan Peters, the composer, Russell Citron, the producer, and Ben Deverett, who does the musical arrangement, and we decided we were going to make a musical. I wrote the book, and Ryan, Russell and I camped out in Ryan’s basement for a week and wrote the music, and Ben, or rather, Dr. Deverett, did the arrangement on his laptop in the call room when he wasn’t anaesthetizing patients. Less than a year after I ordered the DNA test and got the news, we were premiering Our Little Secret at the Toronto Fringe Festival of 2023.Toronto Fringe was an incredible success. We sold out every show, won the Patron’s Pickaward and Best of Fringe, and we just recently secured our first mainstage production, which will be in the spring of 2025 at the Segal Center Theatre in Montreal.

What made you want to takethisto the Fringe?

Performing at Fringe has been a goal of mine since I attended Toronto Fringe as a kid and watched nearly all of a 54-hour production of Waiting for Godot in an underground parking lot. Going to Fringe with my dad helped make me the artist I am today. With one performer, no set to speak of, an unforgettable true story and music that I guarantee you will be singing in the shower well into autumn, we feel that the format and tone is a perfect fit. We have been working hard to bring this show toas many people around the world as we can, and Edinburgh Fringe is also the perfect place to do that. We are so excited to be at the incredible Gilded Balloon and can’t wait for opening night.

Apart from seeing your show, what’s your top tip for anybody heading for Edinburgh this summer?

I have said this before and I’ll say it again-anyone visiting Scotland for the first time needs to try the infamous munchie box. I have lived in America for ten years and scoured the land for comparable feasts, and not even there have I seen such a majestic congregation of fried goodness.

In terms of the theatre, as an avid Fringe goer my advice is always to take a chance. See the goose opera and the guy in the barrel playing the oboe. You will always be surprised and rarely disappointed!

Why should people book to see your show?

If you love unbelievable true stories, family drama, addictive music, and the mischief wrought by the miracles of modern technology, this is the show for you. But on a deeper level, this is the story of how a family deals with an unanticipated crisis and learns how to cope and change so that the process brings them together instead of driving them apart. It’s an optimistic show for everyone ages 9 to 99 that leaves audience members both laughing out loud and crying.

And if you’re not a musical person, don’t worry. Something I was chuffed to hear more than a few times from audience members was that they “hate musicals but LOVED this!!” It’s a show with broad appeal that is universal in its themes of togetherness and openness, and it’s a ton of fun for me to perform too. I think you’re going to love it.

When and where can people seethe show?

Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, 5:30 PM, July 31 to Aug 26