“a madcap, skit-like experience full of joyful comedy… as good as a cheeky bit of fried chicken you weren’t planning on eating, but somehow seemed to hit the spot.” – City News

Neon lighting has dried out your eyeballs. The grease has permeated your sneakers. You think you  can hear salt. A group of fast-food workers are just trying to get through another shift. They’re  underpaid and overworked, and the customers keep coming and time is moving backwards, and  they need to stop working.

After wowing critics and audiences alike in its sell-out, debut Canberra season last year, Canberra Youth Theatre is thrilled to bring Australian playwright Honor Webster-Mannison’s smash-hit comedy Work, But This Time Like You Mean It to Sydney for a limited, one-week run at The Rebel Theatre, Walsh Bay from Wednesday 15th October to Saturday 18th October 2025.

Directed by Canberra Youth Theatre’s Artistic Director and CEO, Luke Rogers, and featuring a stellar cast of eight emerging actors, Webster-Mannison’s darkly surreal new work is an unhinged, deep fryer dive into the lives of overworked, underpaid, teenage wage-slaves, trapped in a dystopian fried chicken time loop.

“A sharp-shooting shot at the employment of young people in the fast food industry. Fast is the word. In fact frenetic may be more like it… a very clever, witty, surreal satire.” – Canberra Critics Circle

Luke Rogers said, “We’re taking twelve artists to Sydney, many of whom will be touring a show for the first time, with an ambitious new work that challenges expectations for what theatre created by young people can achieve. Everyone remembers their first job …seemingly wasting your young life away, one shift at a time, for significantly less than minimum wage. Work, But… is a completely unhinged, chaotic exploration of this universal rite of passage.”

Work, But This Time Like You Mean It is the winner of Canberra Youth Theatre’s 2022 Emerging Playwright Commission, an annual initiative supporting emerging Australian playwrights to bring brand-new, full-length works to the stage.

Chaotic and joyously unhinged, don’t miss the hottest, tastiest, existential-crisis-est show in town.
When: 15–18 October 2025
Times: Wed 15 Oct, 7:30pm | Thu 16 Oct, 1pm & 7:30pm | Fri 17 Oct, 7:30pm | Sat 18 Oct, 7:30pm
Where: The Rebel Theatre, Pier 2/3, Walsh Bay
Tickets: General Admission $35 | Groups 8+ $25
Duration: 60 minutes
Bookings: www.canberrayouththeatre.com.au/work-but-2025

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