Talk about an identity crisis. For his whole life, Canadian actor Noam Tomaschoff, 31, thought he was the son of a Jewish couple with roots in Israel and Montreal. Tomaschoff went to Jewish day school, speaks Hebrew and has visited Israel. But last summer, his life changed when his parents learned he was planning to take a DNA test, for fun, while on holiday at the cottage. So they sat him down to reveal a three-decade-old secret: due to fertility problems, they used an anonymous sperm donor to conceive. The donor is no longer alive. The shocking news prompted Tomaschoff to start searching for answers. He’s since discovered his birth father’s details, including that the man was not Jewish—and Tomaschoff now has 35 half-siblings scattered around the world. Now Tomaschoff has put the experience into a new show, called Our Little Secret: The 23 & Me Musical, debuting July 6 at the Toronto Fringe Festival. Noam Tomaschoff joins The CJN Daily, along with his parents, Gideon Tomaschoff and Sylvie Leone-Tomaschoff.

What we talked about

Learn more about Noam Tomaschoff and his play
To buy tickets, check the play’s website
Read how The CJN covered Noam Tomaschoff and his friends in Grade 12 at TanenbaumChat high school when they wrote their first musical in 2009

Credits

The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Zachary Kauffman is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music is by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To subscribe to this podcast, please watch this video. Donate to The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt by clicking here.

A DNA test revealed this actor wasn’t who he thought he was—so he wrote a musical about it