Congratulations, Get Rich! – quick links
Congratulations, Get Rich! is a bold new work by Merlynn Tong exploring mother-daughter relationships, multigenerational trauma, culture and legacy.
Set in a Singaporean-style karaoke bar over one fateful night, this tragicomic ghost story features a dynamic ensemble cast who belt out original numbers complete with choreographed moves as their characters excavate the messiness of their shared past.
Congratulations, Get Rich!: world premiere
La Boite’s Congratulations, Get Rich! is making its world premiere this September as part of the 2025 Brisbane Festival. The semi-autobiographical musical comedy was written by and stars Merlynn Tong, and is directed by La Boite’s Artistic Director Courtney Stewart.
Tong and Strewart have previously worked together, and this is apparent in the tightly managed direction and staging.
Tong had a wealth of personal experience to draw from when writing the play, having been raised in her family’s karaoke bars in Singapore. Deftly combining fact and fiction, Tong based the characters in Congratulations, Get Rich! on real people, saying in La Boite’s media materials:
‘I have also allowed my imagination to run wild. This has created a perfect fuel of “fantastic autobiography” where our audience will get to meet a suite of characters who feel authentic and real but are also part of a narrative that is outrageous, fun and phenomenal’.
Congratulations, Get Rich!: a make-or-break night
The play opens with Mandy (Tong) and her dad-joke loving boyfriend Xavier (Zac Boulton) on a make-or-break night in Mandy’s failing karaoke bar, Money Money Karaoke. It is soon revealed to be a night of great significance – an auspicious Chinese holiday, as well as Mandy’s 38th birthday, which she wants to ignore.
As tension builds, both between Mandy and Xavier, and externally in the form of an impending storm, the power cuts and the stage is plunged into darkness.
The arrival of two women, Mandy’s long-dead mother (Seong Hui Xuan) and grandmother (Kimie Tsukakoshi) shakes the night up. They have returned to Mandy in the form of hungry ghosts, and so ensues a battle between the three women, for attention, power, love and to be seen and heard. Much to Mandy’s growing frustration, some of the confrontation takes place through showy song and dance numbers.
Finding inspiration from the ghosts of her past has proven rich material for Tong, and the originality of her vision as both playwright and actor shines through in a script layered with symbolism and a heightened performance of stylised melodrama.
Much of the play centres on the interplay between the three generations of strong women, with the intensity of the actors matching each other beat for beat, the ensemble cast keeping the energy high for the 90 minute duration.
Congratulations, Get Rich!: Money Money Karaoke
The set – the central room of Money Money Karaoke – is rich with symbolism and hauntings. Lush in tones of red, gold and pink, it is the smoky and liquor-drenched atmosphere of a karaoke bar brought to life. Gabriel Chan’s lighting design adds to both the glamour of the setting and the tension between the characters, with the stage plunged into darkness on multiple instances.
The production is not all hauntings and trauma, with comic relief provided in many forms. Composer and sound designer Guy Webster’s original karaoke-style soundtrack is delivered for entertainment and laughs, with the ensemble cast working together in comically choreographed harmony.
All four actors lean into the physical comedy of their roles as they cover the full breadth of the stage, and there are particular laughs to be found in the cross-cultural interactions between both Hui Xian’s Mum and Tsukakoshi’s Gma with Boulton’s Xavier.
Congratulations, Get Rich is an internationally co-produced work presented by La Boite Theatre, the Sydney Theatre Company and the Singapore Repertory Theatre in association with Brisbane Festival. Cross-cultural references are woven throughout the play, and the references to Chinese cultural beliefs –hungry ghosts and goddesses, religious holidays and realms of hell – did not feel as if they were toned down for non-Chinese audience members.
Ultimately, the production is testament to the transformative power of healing, hope, and music, and is an important Asian-Australian story told with heart and humour.
