After Austen: Em

We are so excited to welcome award-winning playwright Sam Brooks, to discuss his play Em, a queer retelling of Jane Austen’s masterwork Emma, turned around, flipped and set in our very own Queenstown.

Emmett Woodhouse, handsome, clever and rich, with a comfortable home and a gay disposition has lived nearly [redacted] years in the world with very little to distress or vex him.

Until now.

Em won the Dean Parker Adaptation Award at the 2023 Adam New Zealand Play Awards.

Sam Brooks is an award-winning and prolific playwright and journalist, who is largely noted for his critically acclaimed LGBTQ+ work, including Riding in Cars with (Mostly Straight) Boys, Queen, and most recently This is My Story of Us, which was co-winner of the 2024 Adam New Zealand Play Award. He won the Bruce Mason Playwright's Award, New Zealand's most prestigious award for playwrights. In 2018 his political work, Burn Her, was performed as part of Q's Matchbox Season and won the Auckland Theatre Excellence Award for Best Overall Production. He has been shortlisted multiple years for the Adam New Zealand Play Award, and won the Dean Parker award in 2023.

As a journalist, he has written for The Spinoff and has had bylines at the Pantrograph Punch, Metro and the NZ Herald.

Afternoon tea provided