Work, But This Time Like You Mean It

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.

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.

'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.

This tour is supported by the Australian Theatre for Young People and the ACT Government. Canberra Youth Theatre’s Emerging Playwright Commission is supported by Holding Redlich.