Noam Tomaschoff found out that the man who raised him was not his biological father. He dealt with it the best way he knew how.
Noam Tomaschoff knew something was wrong when his parents asked him to sit down with them at their kitchen table.
His parents each took one
of his hands.
“We are not a hand-holding family,” Tomaschoff said. “I thought someone had died.”
Instead, his parents told him a secret they had planned to keep from their only child – and everyone else – forever: the man who raised him was not his biological father. He was conceived with a sperm donor.
“I was profoundly shocked,” said Tomaschoff, 35. “I had never remotely considered this to be a possibility.”
The revelation began with Tomaschoff’s spontaneous decision to buy a DNA test kit in 2022 when he saw it was on sale.
He mentioned it to his mother. The next morning, his parents sat him down to reveal the truth.
“It was like meeting aliens,” said Tomaschoff, who grew up in Toronto, Canada and now lives in Washington DC. “Your entire concept of reality is now called into question.”
Two months later, when the test results arrived, Tomaschoff learned that he had at least 15 half-siblings. Since then, he has found 20 others, and he believes there are more.
Tomaschoff shared every new development with two close friends from high school, Russell Citron and Ryan Peters. They were “as shocked and as amazed and agog as I was”, he said.
The trio had grown up in Toronto loving musicals and had written and staged one together in high school. They decided Tomaschoff’s DNA discovery could become the premise for a one-man musical.
That spark became Our Little Secret, a musical written and performed by Tomaschoff, produced by Citron and with music by Peters.
Show producer Russell Citron, left, onstage with Tomaschoff just before he met seven of his half-siblings. Photo / Duane Cole, The Washington Post
Tomaschoff’s parents were initially not pleased about the idea of the show, which premiered at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2023, then travelled to Edinburgh, Scotland; Montreal and Edmonton in Canada, before returning to Toronto.
“They were totally shocked and freaking out at the prospect of having this revealed in such a spectacular fashion in the place where they live, where all of their friends and connections are – none of whom were privy to this story,” Tomaschoff said.
“We were very nervous,” said his father, Gideon Tomaschoff. “We were still at the stage where it was a big secret.”
He and his wife, Sylvie Leone, decided they couldn’t stop their son and thought it was time to start telling close friends and family.
“It’s very freeing to be able to talk about it openly,” Leone said.
On Sunday (Monday NZT), seven of Tomaschoff’s donor siblings flew to Toronto from across the United States to see the play and surprise him after the performance.
Citron announced the siblings’ presence at curtain call, and Tomaschoff – who was visibly stunned and emotional – ran into the audience to embrace them. People across the audience were in tears.
“It was such a powerful moment,” said Citron, who planned the surprise with the donor siblings. “He had a huge smile on his face.”
While Tomaschoff was astounded to see them at his show, it seemed a fitting twist in the improbable story.
The trip was coordinated by two of Tomaschoff’s donor siblings: Brandy Erwin, 42, of Greenville, South Carolina, and Kayla Breese, 39, of Cumberland, Rhode Island.
Like Tomaschoff, Erwin learned as an adult that the man who raised her was not her biological father.
Erwin began connecting with her donor siblings, and earlier this year, she flew to Fort Lauderdale for a reunion. There, she met Breese. They hatched a plan for a group trip to see Our Little Secret.
Noam Tomaschoff, centre, with half-sisters, from left, Fallon Bullington, Kayla Breese, Brandy Erwin and Leslie Hicks. Photo / Duane Cole, The Washington Post
“How amazing would it be for us to show up and surprise him?” Erwin recalled saying to Breese, who learned in 2024 that she was part of the same donor-sibling group after receiving a 23andMe test kit as a holiday gift.
“I laughed with my husband because I’m a musical theatre lover and former performer, and I said, ‘Of course I have a sibling who wrote a musical about this,’” said Breese, who hadn’t met Tomaschoff before Sunday’s performance. Many of the siblings, she said, have musical backgrounds.
“The play was absolutely phenomenal,” she said.
Not every sibling who attended wanted to be photographed or identified, as several said they are navigating complicated family dynamics. Erwin said her own family is still processing the news.
While initially Tomaschoff’s parents weren’t keen on their long-held family secret being spilled onstage, they later became comfortable with the idea.
“They came around, and now we feel like this show really represents us as a family,” Tomaschoff said.
“He took this thing and leveraged it into something that healed him, healed us, healed the whole family,” his father said.
The musical follows Tomaschoff from the kitchen-table revelation through to the arrival of his DNA results and the discovery of – and connection with – his many half-siblings. Tomaschoff said the show has helped his family process their complicated history.
“This created a focal point for us to place our energy and attention and build on a new foundation,” Tomaschoff said. “It has made sense of this for us.”
His parents had experienced fertility challenges, they said, and their doctor advised them to keep the sperm donor a secret – a recommendation that several of Tomaschoff’s donor siblings said their parents received, too.
“The whole industry was based on secrecy,” Gideon Tomaschoff said. “Secrecy was a precondition for the whole thing.”
Right after getting his test results from 23andMe, Tomaschoff began connecting with his donor siblings, most of whom live in the United States. He first messaged the one who had been most recently active on the platform.
“She welcomed me to ‘the tribe’,” Tomaschoff said.
That woman was Leslie Hicks, 43, who flew from Fort Lauderdale to surprise her half-brother at his play. Hicks had taken a DNA test in 2019 after suspicions that the man who raised her was not her biological father.
Hicks said connecting with her donor siblings – sometimes called “diblings” – has been an unexpected gift. Like Tomaschoff, and others in the group, Hicks grew up as an only child.
“It’s definitely been a silver lining,” she said.
“It’s been a really easy connection,” added Fallon Bullington, 36, who travelled from New York City to see the show.
The donor siblings, who are in a Facebook group for people conceived using the same sperm donor, check in with each other regularly.
Tomaschoff’s biological father died two years before his parents told him the truth.
Some of his donor siblings had the chance to meet him, and Tomaschoff has learned about his biological father through a son he raised, who is also in the Facebook group.
When Tomaschoff is not focused on the play, he works as a tour guide in Washington DC. One of his donor siblings lives nearby in Virginia, and they spend a lot of time together. He said their dynamic falls somewhere between siblings and friends.
“I have a special type of relationship with these people,” he said.
Since releasing the show, Tomaschoff said, he often hears from audience members with similar stories.
“I hope it makes people feel seen,” Tomaschoff said.
His parents said they’re glad to see their son embracing his once-hidden history, connecting with his siblings and turning it all into something creative.
“He seems to be fully thriving,” said his father. “That makes us really, really happy.”
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