You Can’t Tell Anyone

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.

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

You Can’t Tell Anyone was the winner of Canberra Youth Theatre’s 2021 Emerging Playwright Commission.

APT