Data Tavadze
Country: Georgia
TBILISI INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF THEATRE
Biography
Data Tavadze (b. 1989) is a Georgian theatre director, playwright, and producer. He began his career early, staging his first play at sixteen and directing his first production at eighteen. Since 2009, he has served as Artistic Director of the Royal District Theatre (RDT) in Tbilisi, where he has developed a repertoire confronting political and social realities while mentoring a new generation of Georgian artists. Under his leadership, RDT has achieved international recognition, touring widely across Europe. A board member of the Tbilisi International Festival of Theatre, Tavadze is the recipient of the Talking About Borders prize for the play Warmother (2015), the Fast Forward Festival Prize (2916), and the Sandro Akhmeteli Award for Women of Troy. He has directed at at Deutsches Theater Berlin, Staatsschauspiel Dresden, Schauspiel Frankfurt, Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Polish Theatre Bydgoszcz, Dailes Theatre Riga to mention but few.
Liberté [trigger warning]
Concept of the Performance:
Liberté [trigger warning] is a devised performance that investigates the anthropology of revolution through the prism of language, shame, and propaganda. Developed collaboratively during the rehearsal process, the piece reflects on how freedom is spoken, silenced, and distorted—across classes, generations, and identities. Created as a direct reaction to the recent anti-LGBT “propaganda” law passed by the Georgian government, the work transforms political violence into
a space of resistance and poetic defiance. Inspired by the 19th-century Georgian triad—LANGUAGE, HOMELAND, FAITH—once defining national identity, Liberté [trigger warning] reimagines it through three movements: LANGUAGE, SHAME, and PROPAGANDA. Combining documentary fragments, physical theatre, and a performative essay form, the piece exposes how power shapes speech, how shame becomes a weapon of control, and how propaganda infects
collective consciousness—offering a raw meditation on the language of freedom in times of oppression.
Artistic Statement
Theatre remains one of the last places where we can gather without armour, protected only by the unity of people. Every political regime’s primary goal is to destroy the spaces where we practice solidarity — where we come together to fight the loneliness of the individual against an unjust system. Art is here to remind us: you are not alone. In a world increasingly dominated by corrupted language, censorship, simulated realities, conspiracy theories, speed, noise, and violence, theatre stands as an ultimate refuge: slow, human, and courageous. We create theatre to explore what it truly means to be alive — to protect what feels most endangered: empathy, complexity, memory. In theatre, we rehearse what it means to care, to heal the fractures of polarisation, and to remind each other that even in the harshest realities, when everything tries to strip us of our humanity, we still have the power to choose to remain human.
I make theatre not because I have hope, but because it is how I fight for hope.
Portfolio & Latest Theatre Performances :
2024 — LIBERTÉ [Trigger Warning], Royal District Theatre, Tbilisi
2024 — Hunger, Royal District Theatre, Tbilisi
2023 — The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht, Dailes Theatre, Riga
2023 — LARS & HUBRIS, performance for Tbilisi Architecture Biennale
2022 — The Goldberg Variations by George Tabori, Schauspiel Frankfurt
2021 — Nothing About Us Without Us by Davit Gabunia, Polish Theatre in Bydgoszcz
2020 — Iphigenia in Tauris by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, G-H-T, Görlitz-Zittau
2020 — Everyman [dies] by Ferdinand Schmalz, Deutsches Theater Berlin
2019 — Transit by Anna Seghers, Staatsschauspiel Dresden
2019 — It’s Dark and She Doesn’t Know There Are Others in the Room, for Tbilisi Drama Festival
2019 — Fewer Emergencies by Martin Crimp, Royal District Theatre, Tbilisi
2019 — Far Away by Caryl Churchill, Royal District Theatre, Tbilisi
2018 — Love and Intrigue by Friedrich Schiller, Staatsschauspiel Dresden
2018 — Tiger & Lion by Davit Gabunia, Badisches Staatstheater, Karlsruhe
2017 — FACES after Yasunari Kawabata, Royal District Theatre, Tbilisi
2016 — Prometheus / 25 Years of Independence (co-written with Davit Gabunia), Royal District
Theatre, Tbilisi
2014 — Pain Is Youth (free after Ferdinand Bruckner), Royal District Theatre, Tbilisi
2013 — The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare, Tbilisi Youth Theatre
2013 — Women of Troy (based on interviews with war survivors and Euripides), Royal District
Theatre, Tbilisi
2012 — Miss Julie by August Strindberg, Royal District Theatre, Tbilisi
2010 — The Ugly One by Marius von Mayenburg, Royal District Theatre, Tbilisi
2009 — The Children of Others by Davit Gabunia, Royal District Theatre, Tbilisi
SELECTED WORKS:
WOMEN OF TROY [2013][Royal District Theatre in Georgian with English Subtitles]
Women of Troy is a devised performance that weaves Euripides’ ancient tragedy with the real testimonies of Georgian women who experienced war. Drawing on interviews and literary sources, the play transforms classical grief into a modern story of survival and resilience. It challenges the silenced suffering of women throughout Georgia’s post-Soviet history, from the 1990s to the present day. Through their voices, the work reclaims memory as a form of resistance.
Video: Women Of Troy – Full – Royal District Theatre
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The GOLDBERG VARIATIONS [2022]
by George Tabori[Schauspiel Frankfurt in German]
Die Goldberg-Variationen transforms George Tabori’s absurd and blasphemous text into a reflection on creation, authority, and rebellion. Set within the chaos of a theatre rehearsal, it reimagines the biblical story from Genesis to Golgotha as a struggle between the director and his actors, as well as between God and humankind. The performance blurs sacred and profane, exposing theatre itself as an act of faith and defiance. It is a meditation on the limits of power, interpretation, and forgiveness.
Photos: Die Goldberg-Variationen, von George Tabori | Schauspiel Frankfurt
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HUNGER[Royal District Theatre / 2024]
Hunger unfolds in a city that feels like “one vast catalogue of advertisements, one endless menu—impossible to bear on an empty stomach.” Seven people meet for one night, yet each searches alone for a way out of social injustice and despair. When the entire system is guilty, can anyone remain innocent?
HUNGER PHOTOS: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?
set=a.859978319501758&type=3
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PROMETHEUS / 25 Years of Independence
by Data Tavadze / Davit Gabunia[Royal District Theatre / 2016 / with ENGLISH SUBTITLES]
Prometheus / 25 Years of Independence is dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Georgia’s regained independence. The performers belong to a generation that is the same age as their country’s independence. Together, they explore the weight of history carried within their own bodies.
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JEDERMAN [STIRBT]
by Ferdinand Schmaltz[Deutches Theatre / 2019 / in German]
DT Jedermann edit Auffuehrung
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TIGER & LION[Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe / 2018 / in German]
Tiger und Löwe is based on the notebook of Georgian writer Mikhail Javakhishvili, who was executed during Stalin’s purges in 1937. In it, he had gathered fragments and ideas for works he would never write. The performance transforms these unfinished traces into a reflection on censorship, silence, and the resilience of imagination under terror.
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CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE [Dailes Theatre / 2023]
PHOTOS:
https://www.dailesteatris.lv/lv/izrades/2022-2023/kaukaziesu-krita-aplis
