Who would be a rock'n'roll star?
While most people will sail happily through life without this dilemma, struggling musician Riley Cormac (Sam Maxwell) feels his shot at fame and fortune has passed him by at the tender age of 26.
That is until a cackling black-cloaked two-faced creature (writer-director Margaret O'Hanlon) offers Riley a Faustian pact - one year of being a beloved rock god and forever famous, in exchange for his eternal soul on his 27th birthday.
O'Hanlon and Jason Medina as story devisers and Katy Anderson as concept originator put into play the urban legend of ''the 27 Club'' in Twenty Seven: The Immortal and the Undiscovered.
Riley doubles as the barman, who is given differing advice on whether to make the deal with the devil from a cast of fictional characters who are dead ringers of real members of the club - rock and pop stars who all died at the age of 27, robbing the world of decades of phenomenal music.
Among this rogues' gallery are his girlfriend Lizzie, an Amy Winehouse doppelganger winningly played by Fiona Stephenson, complete with brassy ''Norf Lahndan'' accent, and his jaded best mate Brodie, the spitting image of Kurt Cobain, right down to the cheap sunglasses, played by Alex Fraser.
Twenty Seven is a fine companion piece in the growing repertoire of rock'n'roll theatre of Queenstown's own Whirlwind Productions.
The quality of singing talent available in the Wakatipu is never in question, although acting skills varied across the cast in the company's most demanding script yet.
Radio microphones, the spread-out seating arrangement and the live band on stage gave the vocalists and backing singers dancing in unison freer rein to swoop around the audience at the memorial centre than at the confined Arrowtown Athenaeum Hall.
The challenge was making the self-absorbed Riley the hero of his own story while surrounded by so many dominant characters.
Servicing such a large ensemble by giving each character a turn in the spotlight also stretched the show to three hours. There is something to be said for leaving the audience wanting more.
