Three closes tonight. The three women who met at NYU then embarked on a decade-long friendship will laugh, bicker, fight, and make up one more time.

And you have to wonder if the secret--the big secret--will be kept.

Our audience members seem to know about secrets too. Keeping them. And experiencing the pleasure and relief (release?) of telling their deepest, darkest secrets in the secret box in the lobby.

I have a crush on Kelly Chick.

I'm scared to get married.

I had an abortion.

I don't think I'm actually all that empathetic. I've wondered if I'm a sociopath or perhaps just really selfish.

If I have sex with someone who is bad at it, I will tell them they are great so they never improve.

As a teenager, I would steal money from my parents to buy weed. When they found out, I blamed the cleaning lady. She got fired.

I have very large labia.

I didn't use soap when I washed my hands.

I spend too much time with porn. Like, TOO much time. Seriously, I've got to search hard nowadays to find something new.

Secrets play a major role in Three.

Diane and Sam have a secret that affects their relationship through the life of the play.  Jenni has a secret that could destroy the friendship we've seen evolve throughout the play.  Secrets are part of the dramatic tension of Three. Consider this bit of dialogue:

DIANE - I don't want to tell you, Sam wants to keep it secret.
JENNI - I think we should tell each other secrets later, though. Because it's fun.
DIANE - I love telling secrets.
JENNI - I know you do.
DIANE - It's, like, my favorite thing.
JENNI - I know, that's why I never tell you things I don't want other people to know.
DIANE - Don't tell me your secrets! I will tell everyone.

Or:

JENNI - If I tell you something will you promise to still like me?
DIANE - No.

When audience members know secrets before characters in the play, it makes the audience complicit in the secrecy. It brings the audience into the world of the play in a very visceral way.

Playwright Emily Kaye Lazzaro said that her idea behind the secrets was that the act of telling a secret, whether it's to a friend or to a stranger, is really pleasurable and freeing. "Secrets are sort of made to be told," she said.

Which is why, in the lobby, there is a box. And Emily has asked audience members to anonymously write their secrets on a piece of paper and put them in the box. There are a few prompts to help get ideas flowing. Prompts like, "I'm too scared to have sex because of the face I might make during it" and "You didn't prepare me for how cruel the world can be."

What we weren't prepared for was the honesty and fearlessness that we found from our audience when we opened the box.

I pee in the shower.

I feel like I'm the only thing holding my family together.

I'm ashamed of how I look but want to be a confident woman.

I never acknowledge when I accidentally fart.

I wish I had slept with more of my friends.

If I sit down to eat by myself, I'll cry.

Secrets. What's your secret?