You Can’t Tell Anyone

 

About the Play

Winner of the 2021 CYT Emerging Playwright Commission

Winner of the 2023 Ovation for Best New Work

Winner of the 2023 Ovation for Best Youth Production

Winner of the 2023 Ovation for Best Lead in a Youth Production

Shortlist for the 2023 AWGIES Best Youth Play

It’s the end of school and Gwen is throwing a party. After an emotional year, her friends are keen to spend the night drinking, playing games, and arguing about literally everything. But when a party game spirals out of control, long-held tensions start to strain and snap. Are the friends messing with each other? Or is there a bigger threat pounding at the door?

Lured ever deeper by the thrill of unfolding secrets, the lines between honesty and cruelty begin to blur. Confrontation gives way to chaos, breaking bonds of trust, and testing the rules we cling to in order to keep us safe.

You Can’t Tell Anyone is a philosophical thriller that examines how teenagers survive the loss of meaning, structure, and identity that comes with the end of adolescence. It invites audiences to listen in on the intimate secrets of lifelong friends, and the world-shattering cruelty of growing up and growing apart. Taut with suspense and malevolence, the play delves into the dangerous mind-games you can only play with people you've known your whole life.

It asks us what it means to truly know someone, to truly be a friend, and to truly be yourself.

“Canberra Youth Theatre’s production of Joanna Richards’ philosophical thriller You Can’t Tell Anyone raises the bar to a new level of professionalism from the emerging artists. This is youth theatre at its best.”
— Peter Wilkins, Australian Arts Review

ENTHRALLING DEPICTION OF MODERN YOUNG ADULTHOOD

“This play is about that space where we begin to ‘pretend’ adulthood; where we learn to fear that we are secretly bad people, terrible friends, and somehow the only person learning how to do this for the first time — and getting it wrong. It’s about the child we were, the adult we’re becoming, and desperately finding a way to make them meet in the middle.”
— Caitlin Baker, Director
“The idea of social rules and contagion drives the work, and it is rooted in our deep human desire to believe in something and to be a part of the group. The adherence to a strong collective consciousness is particularly relevant to youth today, as they struggle to retain any sense of meaning, order, and belonging in a world full of great uncertainty.”
— Joanna Richards, Playwright
“The play is intellectually meaty, performatively fun, and also emotionally complex as the eight characters play the Paranoia Game. Seems innocent enough but the very room – where they all had partied before and is now full of memories and significances – takes on a life of its own. What impresses me is to see how creating the performance of the art – which shows intellectually how the world is falling apart – so successfully brings the performers together as a bonded group. Tell Everyone. A Must See”
— Frank McKone, Critics Circle

  • Playwright Joanna Richards
    Director Caitlin Baker
    Set & Costume Designer Kathleen Kershaw
    Lighting Designer Ethan Hamill
    Sound Designer & Composer Patrick Haesler
    Stage Manager Rhiley Winnett

    Original Cast

    Ella Buckley
    Jessica Gooding
    Lachlan Houen
    Breanna Kelly
    Emily O’Mahoney
    Isaiah Prichard
    Jake Robinson
    Paris Scharkie

  • The story and dialogical structure of the show is comparable to Sarah DeLappe's The Wolves.

    Thematically, the show feels like other philosophical works such as Satre's No Exit or Beckett's Waiting For Godot, but a more fitting comparison would be the work of Luis Bunuel, whose film The Exterminating Angel influenced the script.

  • Joanna Richards was the Inaugural winner of the Canberra Youth Theatre's Emerging Playwright Commission. Through this commission she had access to the company of young actors which she used to develop the work.

    The script utilises 'voiceprints', taking the exact phrasing, tone, and patterns of young people talking and injecting them into the work. It was important that the show authentically represent the people for which it was made. This was achieved through multiple interviews, focus groups, and observing young members in the company.

    Over the course of a year, two week long developments were done with the youth company, to collaborate on making the work as grounding in reality and theatrically challenging as possible.

    Throughout this period, three company dramaturgs gave feedback on the script. A staged reading was then performed for the public to get industry wide feedback on the work.

    Following it's premiere season the script was revised based on performance feedback.

    Performance rights for the play have already been sought by multiple drama schools with the intention of using it as their showcase work.

 

IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS

Download the You Can’t Tell Anyone script

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Download the original program

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Download the original media release