PIZZA. WINE. FRIENDSHIP. REPEAT.

From left to right: Max Crean, Kate Johnstone, Tyler Wilson-Kokiri, Adeline Shaddick. (Photo: Jinki Cambronero).

Award-winning playwright Sam Brooks transforms Q Vault for the premiere of All You Had Was Fun, November 18-29.

Four friends hang out. Someone brings pizza. Someone brings wine. Someone isn’t there.

They’re grieving. Or remembering. Or avoiding the subject entirely. Then the night happens again. And again. Same room. Same setup. Same four people. Different points in time. Something has shifted. Or maybe it hasn’t.

Written and directed by Sam Brooks, All You Had Was Fun is a play about friendship, cycles and the roles we end up playing with the people who know us best.

Starring Max Crean (Ngāti Kahungunu), Kate Johnstone, Adeline Shaddick and Tyler Wilson-Kokiri (Ngaati Porou), All You Had Was Fun lingers on that weird territory between people – the space where friendship, memory, identity and grief get tangled up. It’s about the people you know by heart. The people you can’t shake. The people who aren’t there anymore. And things that keep happening anyway.

“This show is playing a game I’ve never seen attempted onstage. It asks a lot of everybody involved – and that includes the audience,” says writer and director Sam Brooks. “We’re so used to sitting back and passively receiving content. I think audiences want to engage with art. They want to lean in. They want to ask questions and find their own answers.” 

With a design from iconic team Filament 11 (A View from the Bridge, Constellations) and styling from the legendary Kristine Crabb (Miss Crabb, Gloria), All You Had Was Fun will transform Q Vault into a space like never before for a brand-new era of Q Theatre’s edgiest underground space.

Phil Evans, the head of programming and production, says, “Part of the fabric of Q Theatre, Vault is our smallest studio in which the most intimate magic happens. We are delighted to support the season of All You Had Was Fun and cannot wait for Sam's vision to transport our audiences and transform our space.”

We bring the pizza, the beer and the memories. You fill the gaps.

This production of All You Had Was Fun is presented by Smoke Labours Productions with support from Q Theatre and Creative New Zealand. The show’s development was supported by Barbarian Productions’ Ruckus development programme in 2022 and a residency at the Michael King Writers’ Centre in 2023. The 2026 season is produced by Nomuna Amarbat.

Sam Brooks is an award-winning playwright and journalist. His plays include Riding in Cars with (Mostly Straight) Boys, A Rich Man and Burn Her, which had a critically acclaimed and sell-out run at Q Theatre in 2018. He has won the Bruce Mason Playwrighting Award and holds the record for the most plays shortlisted for the ADAM Award, at 17. His upcoming work includes She’s Sold, a commission from Silo Theatre, adapting his play Boy Meets Man into a feature film screenplay, and Riding in Riding in Cars with (Mostly Straight) Boys with (Mostly Straight) Boys, a meta-theatrical adaptation of his landmark play.

All You Had Was Fun plays:
Wednesday, November 18 - Sunday, November 29
All shows at 8pm, apart from Sunday, which plays at 6pm. 
Q Vault
Book at qtheatre.co.nz