Paata Tsikolia
Playwright / Dramatist · Director
Tbilisi · Georgia

Theatre that refuses to tell you what to think.

Artistic Statement — working draft

I make theatre that refuses to tell you what to think.

My work puts you inside situations too complex to simplify on the way home — no comfortable distance, no delivered conclusions. You leave carrying the problem, not the answer.

Form is never decoration. Every play demands its own structure, arrived at from the pressure of its material — monodrama, choral polyphony, public score, cyberpunk, myth broken open, grotesque comedy, noir, horror. The shape is the argument.

I work on how power moves through bodies, language and spectacle: the state, the family, the institution, the screen. I write from Georgia — a ground that gives the work a specific authority, and an address that reaches far past its borders.

I don't stage certainty. I stage the conditions under which it breaks.

— draft · replace with your own words

Selected Works
Medea s01e062020Playwright · DirectorMyth fractured into an episodic score. RADAR OST, Deutsches Theater Berlin · Heidelberger Stückemarkt · SABA Award, Best Play.
Coldblooded2018Playwright · DirectorVisual drama in eleven pictures — from grotesque comedy to collective catastrophe. Tbilisi New Drama Festival.
Zipo2023Playwright · DirectorNoir monodrama, narrated from inside the trunk of a car. Royal District Theatre, Tbilisi.
My Name Is Lali2016PlaywrightCyberpunk monodrama — an AI companion outlives the world that made her. Duruji nomination, Best Writing.
Khramuna (Munchy)2015Director · AdaptationChamber grotesque. Poti Valerian Gunia State Theatre · toured Georgia · Istanbul.
The Beauty2018Playwright · DirectorChamber theatre in a ruined interior. Royal District Theatre, Tbilisi.
Antigone after SophoclesDirector · AdaptationTragedy stripped to bodies, dust and a single line of light.
Macbeth2020Director · AdaptationAlytus City Theatre, Lithuania — international co-production.
Earlier & collaborative
The Sheherezade Project2020Tbilisi New Drama Festival.
AbductionScore for a public megaphone in a crowd. Tbilisi New Drama Festival.
Over There · CaligulaCo-written · New Theatre Tbilisi and national stages.
In Development · 2025–26
BottomdevA new play after A Midsummer Night's Dream — the comedy's architecture as a mirror for the politics of belonging in Europe. Structure complete; writing residency, Teatr Dramatyczny im. G. Holoubka, Warsaw.
Romanticists2026New production — rehearsals Apr 2026, premiere Jun 2026, Royal District Theatre, Tbilisi.
My Name Is LalidevStaging development of the cyberpunk monodrama.
Coldblooded — HybriddevRebuilt as a performance-installation; digital prototype.
Recognition & Platforms
2024Heidelberger Stückemarkt — Medea s01e06, Germany
2023RADAR OST, Deutsches Theater Berlin — Medea s01e06
2020SABA Literary Award, Best Play — Medea s01e06
2020Macbeth, Alytus City Theatre — int'l co-production, Lithuania
'14–17Duruji Prize, Best Writing (Caligula) · nominations: Khramuna, My Name Is Lali
Platforms & roles
2018–Founding Artistic Director — Tbilisi New Drama Festival
2023–Founder / Researcher — A Scene of Change, theatre policy research
2014–Founding Committee — Batumi International Festival of Monodrama
'15–16Chief Director — Poti Valerian Gunia State Professional Theatre
Education
'09–11MA Directing — Robert Sturua Workshop, Rustaveli Theatre & Film University
'04–07BA Directing — Gizo Jordania Workshop, Rustaveli Theatre & Film University
'99–02MBA & BA Economics — Ashcroft International Business School, Cambridge, UK
Contact

Open to commissions, co-productions, festival presentation, residencies and dramaturgical collaboration — in Georgia and internationally.

Based in
Tbilisi, Georgia
( look — the rest is blind )