Secrets

by Joanna Halpert Kraus

by Joanna Halpert Kraus

Drama for 5th to 8th grade audiences. 4 women, 1 man, area stage.. $ 6.50

They always planned to tell Lisa she was adopted. Maybe when she was six. Maybe when she was more emotionally mature. Maybe . . .

Suddenly the 13 year old gets a phone call out of the blue: “Hello, I’m your mother.” As the long-kept secret comes tumbling out, the once-happy household is torn apart by anger, resentment, and jealousy. Micki, Lisa’s birth mother, is an aging flower child, and Lisa is drawn to the romance of her gypsy life style and her protest marches to save the trees, all the more glamorous because they are forbidden Secretly, Lisa meets with her mother, and ends up joining the protesters. the march, and gets caught up unwittingly in the violence that follows.

The teens who worked with Secrets in its development found it spoke, not only to the children of adoption, but to all of them often baffled and sometimes made furious by the unspoken dynamics of family relationships.



I have long admired the plays of Joanna Halpert Kraus for their ability to reach young people with their complex themes and dramatic intensity. Her latest play, Secrets, is a powerful drama of ideas and feelings that tells the story of a family torn apart when a 13-year old girl discovers the secret of her true birth. There are no heroes or villains here–just a group of three-dimensional characters who make you laugh, cry, and think.

In the playwright’s masterful hands, Secrets handles the feelings of alienation, betrayal, and loss with a sure touch that never loses its sense of the drive and resiliency of young people.

Scott Laughead, Director of Education
Periwinkle National Theatre


Joanna Kraus once again takes on a challenging subject and delivers a well-crafted, insightful story for today’s youth.

Secrets is a brilliant look at adoption from a playwright who doesn’t shy away from offering the world of youth theatre excellent work. From The Ice Wolf to Secrets Joanna Kraus writes with passion and a skill rarely found in plays for youth.
Tim Slaughter
Outreach College, University of Hawaii at Manoa

Secrets does a wonderful job of exploring Lisa’s quest to find herself. It is a quest that all teens, adopted or not, can relate to. My students LOVED the play. Secrets provides many opportunites for student actors to explore not only a character, but themselves and their families at the same time.
Makaela Huntsinger, Theatre Director
Pittsburg, CA High School