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Laced with acerbic humour, Do Not Pass Go turns hustle culture inside out to ask: when the system is built to break you, what’s left to hold onto?
Flux and Penny are colleagues whiling away their lives in the nondescript purgatory of a workplace no-one seems to run, doing a job no-one can explain, in a system neither of them really believe in. Clocked on, but gradually checking out. As their conversations drift away from work – into politics, their personal lives, and whether any of it still matters – their hot takes cool to something closer to connection. Together, they follow the precarious path to ‘work friends’, searching for common ground in a world that feels increasingly broken.
Since debuting Hungry Ghosts in 2018, screenwriter and playwright Jean Tong (Heartbreak High, Flat Earthers: The Musical) has cemented their place as one of the most exciting contemporary voices in Australian writing.
Jean Tong is a Naarm-based writer, dramaturg, director, and Associate Artist with Melbourne Theatre Company. For theatre, Jean’s writing credits include: the critically acclaimed Flat Earthers: The Musical (Griffin Theatre Company/Hayes Theatre co); Hungry Ghosts (Melbourne Theatre Company); Green Room award nominee Romeo is Not the Only Fruit. Their directing work includes Dying: A Memoir (Melbourne Theatre Company); Caught (Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre) and Oh No! Satan Stole My Pineal Gland! (Melbourne Fringe). For screen, Jean’s writing credits include Heartbreak High S2 (Netflix/Fremantle), Safe Home (SBS/Kindling Pictures), Erotic Stories (SBS/Lingo Pictures), and 100% Wolf S2 (ABC). They were the script co-ordinator for New Gold Mountain (SBS/Goalpost) and are currently developing original works for film and television with Photoplay, SBS and Screen Australia. Jean was the inaugural 2023 Melbourne Theatre Company NEXT STAGE Fellow, and the Belvoir Theatre Philip Parson’s Writing Fellow in 2020. In 2025, Jean was selected by Australians in Film and Screen Australia to take part in their Talent Gateway program.
