#playwright demo

[akshatait]

[lions-and-men-musical]

song snippet (patroclus)

very small clip, but I’m happy with how it turned out. this is the song where patroclus’s ghost talks to achilles (Book 23 of the Iliad)

also here are the lyrics written out:

how could you do this to me;

clash of bronze and shattered teeth?

all for you couldn’t give up your pride

[definitlynotdumb]

transcription of the rolling stone article featuring car seat headrest that came out a few days ago (since it's paywalled and barely legible on archive.org), continues under the cut for length

Car Seat Headrest come back from the brink

After a serious health scare for Will Toledo, he and his bandmates reconnected with the joy of playing music together

By Simon Vozick-Levinson

March 4th, 2025

Car Seat Headrest: Dalby, Ives, Katz and Toledo (from left) Image credits: CARLOS CRUZ

Will Toledo has taken fans of his band, Car Seat Headrest, on some epic adventures over the years, leading them through concept albums full of lengthy songs and countless thrilling concerts. But he’s never spun a story quite as dramatic as the one he’s revealing this spring.

The Scholars, out May 2 on Matador Records, features at least a dozen distinct characters, in settings that include a mysterious university and a clown school. There are references to a 16th-century Venetian playwright, an old American folk song, and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. At a private performance of the album at New York’s Bitter End club last month, guests were handed a printed libretto explaining all of this, with lyrics cheekily credited to “my great-great-great-great-grandfather, the Archbishop Guillermo Guadalupe del Toledo.”

There's a lot more mythology where that came from, including an enigmatic online game. If you don't have time to race down the rabbit hole, though, here's the most important thing to know about The Scholars: it's the most directly pleasurable Car Seat Headrest album in a while, packed with anthemic choruses and satisfying live-band crunch. Songs like "The Catastrophe (Good Luck With That, Man)" and "Devereux" are bright, catchy, and instantly accessible. The lead single, "Gethsemane", stretches out for nearly 11 minutes of proggy rise and fall.

“It came from jams, mostly,” says Andrew Katz, 34, the band’s wry, energetic drummer. “We hadn’t really played together in a while. Let’s just rip, record it, and see how it sounds.”

A couple of days after the Bitter End performance, Toledo and his bandmates are gathered in the basement of Matador Records’ downtown Manhattan office. Katz sits next to guitarist Ethan Ives, 31, and across from bass player Seth Dalby, 34. In the middle is Toledo, 32, lanky and thoughtful as always, with an N95 mask and long hair hiding much of his face.

Car Seat Headrest began 15 years ago as a solo project for Toledo, who built a devoted fanbase on Bandcamp before moving to Seattle, assembling the musicians who now make up the band, and signing with Matador. Though this lineup has now been together for nearly a decade, they’d never fully brought their live dynamic into the studio before. 

“We found that we had a sound as a four-piece that had not really emerged on any of our previous records, because those were more like me coming up with solo demos and then giving that to the band,” Toledo says. This time, he adds, “I was more of an organizer than the composer.”

The Scholars is a hard swerve away from Car Seat Headrest’s last album, Making a Door Less Open, whose glossy pop surfaces and occasional satirical edge were the result of a long, fraught recording process. Almost as soon as they’d released that album into a pandemic-stunned world in May 2020, Toledo says, he started thinking about doing things differently next time. He recalls listening to Mozart’s Magic Flute and forming the beginnings of an idea for an album structured like an opera, with songs in the voices of multiple characters — an “exercise in empathy,” he says.

Before he could develop that idea any further, though, he was sidelined for months with an unexpected medical crisis that put the band’s future in question. 

Car Seat Headrest previewed their new album, The Scholars, with a private show at the Bitter End in New York. Image credits: GRIFFIN LOTZ FOR ROLLING STONE

IT STARTED IN the spring of 2022, when Car Seat Headrest mounted their first tour since before the pandemic. “When we came back, we found we had a lot of younger fans,” Toledo says. “Fans who had never seen Car Seat before. A lot of them, I think, hadn’t seen rock shows before at all.”

Those audiences made for some memorable nights, as documented on the live album Faces from the Masquerade. At one March 2022 show in Brooklyn, Toledo wore a fursuit onstage for the first time, drawing rapturous cheers from the furries in the crowd. “That was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing that went with the energy that we were riding at the time,” he says. “And the audience loved it… The best shows were, I think, the best shows that we’d played up to that point.” 

“We were like, ‘Finally, we’ve hit the peak. We’re having fun now,'” Katz says.

“And then just a couple shows after that, I got Covid,” Toledo adds.

They canceled their next few shows, and the rest of the band flew home to Seattle. Toledo spent a few days isolated in a Washington, D.C.-area hotel room, resting up and “scrolling through Twitter, looking at all the very nice responses” to the fursuit he’d debuted in Brooklyn. After a week or so, feeling recovered, he flew back west to join the rest of the band.

Once he was home, it became clear that Toledo was still dealing with a serious health issue. “I started feeling worse and worse again, and I didn’t know why,” he says. “I would wake up in the morning, feel OK, and then as soon as I started eating, it seemed like my tongue was burning.”

Toledo got through the next few months with difficulty, canceling some shows and doing his best to tough it out at others. “We played Seattle, and that was by far the worst I’ve ever felt during a show,” he says. “I’m still not sure how I got through it.” Many of his problems were digestive in nature, leading to a mistaken diagnosis of stomach flu. But no matter how many times his symptoms seemed to improve, they always came back.

Finally, in October 2022, he made the decision to scratch all of Car Seat Headrest’s upcoming dates. Toledo broke the news to fans with a grim message posted on social media: “After another month of struggling to regain my health, I am currently forced to face the fact that my body lacks the basic levels of functionality necessary to leave the house most days, let alone embark on a tour.”

During that long period of uncertainty about his health, Toledo’s bandmates let him know they were OK with Car Seat Headrest ending if that’s what it took for him to get better. “I think we had a phone call,” Katz says. “I was like, ‘Dude, if you got to quit, just quit. It’s not the end of the world. We are all capable people. We’ll figure something else out.’”

“Hey, maybe another album’s not in the cards,” Dalby recalls thinking.

Eventually, Toledo was diagnosed with histamine intolerance, a chronic condition that he was able to manage by going on an extremely limited diet. “I remember I did a grocery run,” Katz says, turning to Toledo. “All you could eat was what, carrots and one other thing? It was really scary.”

By the spring of 2023, with Toledo’s health under control at last, they were ready to start work on their next album. The mood was open and collaborative, from those liberating full-band jams to the newly prominent songwriting contributions made by Ives.

“One of the first things we did was just me and him sitting down on one of our friends’ lawns with acoustic guitars and going back and forth,” Toledo says. “Just listening and seeing, ‘Where can it go from here?’ It felt good to step back from the role of having to provide the material.”

The guitarist — a big-time Neil Young fan who’s wearing a Steve Albini T-shirt when we meet — ended up taking a turn on lead vocals at several key points on the album, including on a majestic power ballad he co-wrote called “Reality.” (In the libretto, he’s credited as “Artemis.”) “I had wanted to contribute more writing to the band, and I had already been sort of vocal about that,” Ives says. “It ended up being fortuitous.”

“I thought of our practice space as a workshop,” Toledo adds. “And days when we were working on Ethan’s songs were easier for me.” He liked how it all fit into the storyline he was sketching out, comparing it to the way dancers come on and off the stage in Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker: “I really feel like my strong point is less coming up with the original content and more prodding something that’s already there into a direction that I see it going.”

Ives (left) with Toledo at the Bitter End show. Image credits: GRIFFIN LOTZ FOR ROLLING STONE

TODAY, TOLEDO SAYS, his medical ordeal is in the past, for the most part. “I feel better now than I ever have in my life, in terms of the vigor and energy of my body,” he says. “That still varies from day to day, and there is still fragility there. Sometimes I still do have a day where, for no discernable reason, I have a downturn.”

He’s been able to limit his symptoms most effectively by sticking to a strict diet: “In case any readers out there think they might have this, try a diet of oats, pumpkin seeds, rice, potatoes, carrots, broccoli, and, if you eat meat, chicken and turkey.” He also feels he’s benefited in other ways from the clarity that can accompany a health scare.

“Being very sick puts you in touch with what’s real in life and what isn’t,” he says. “As I started getting better, I tried to keep having that time for stillness in my life, and I started meditating more. And I’ve kept that up as a daily practice.”

At both the Bitter End performance and our interview, he’s wearing a tight-fitting N95 mask, which he tells me he does both to protect himself and out of consideration for a close friend who has been battling post-Covid symptoms for five years. “I wear it pretty much whenever I go out in public now,” he says. “It’s more worth it to me to stick on a mask when I’m in public and then have people in safe spaces that I can unmask around.”

He’ll be wearing the same mask when Car Seat Headrest return to U.S. stages this year for a series of carefully limited engagements. “We’re not going to tour in the sense of getting on the road and doing a different city every night,” he says. “Every couple weeks, we’re going to fly out and do a show. And that was a very practical decision based on estimates about my health.”

He and his bandmates are currently working out a new setlist that will have room for some of the more sprawling songs on The Scholars — the longest of which, “Planet Desperation,” rages on for almost 19 minutes on the record — along with at least a few older fan favorites.

“I love how simple they are and how big a reaction we can get,” Katz says of the more concise songs from albums like 2016’s Teens of Denial and 2018’s Twin Fantasy (Face to Face). “I love it. But obviously, you have to fucking move on at some point. You can’t just keep playing ‘Drunk Drivers’ for 25 years.”

Toledo agrees. “I get so excited playing these new songs that I would rather spend less time on the old songs,” he says, and though I can’t see his expression, I get the sense he is smiling slightly. “If they hate the record, we’ll go back to Twin Fantasy. But we’re hoping that they like it.”

here's all, thanks for reading! consider reblogging to support my efforts (no pressure)

tagging @cosmicanchorite and @thoseareyougotsomeniceshoulders since you said you were interested on my other post!

have a good one :)

[thewhizzyhead]

ya know, what made epic the musical such a joy for me personally is seeing it actually develop throughout its 4-5 year long history and I don't just mean like from the ground up and everything. I mean it in a way as someone who immediately clocked Jorge Rivera-Herrans as a fellow playwright heavily inspired by Lin Manuel Miranda's style - which fucking meant of course most of the early publicized drafts of epic were raps because of course they are (this is not meant to be a slight because like I totally get him)!

But like actually seeing Jorge apply the lessons in LMM's writing into his own original style that is befitting to the story he wants to tell - and not only that, he literally took his audience along with him on his journey with every tried-and-tested demo and audition and everything, and the actual pre-production and production process of writing an album is something we don't usually get at all, especially in something as extensive as a musical concept album!

Like what really had EPIC make it's mark on the internet and on musical theatre (especially INDIE MT) is that it was a literal Odyssey of sorts - the creation of this entire fucking thing was a journey from beginning to end and we were all invited to witness it from behind the scenes while also having many artists among fans be a part in its creation one way or another, while also observing how Jay had his own artistic development throughout - from someone whose epic was quite obviously heavily stylized after Hamilton, into an artist whose style he can call truly his own.

I have so much more to say on how and why epic became such an iconic piece of work and perhaps being the first MT work in 2020 to truly define the decade, but all in all let's just say I'm glad to have witnessed the growth of an artist - and I'm excited to see what art this will inspire in turn.

[ahrinterface]

reading playwrights this morning + took a bath last night.

in a state of limbo .. not really sure where i am most times (metaphysically) and because of it i’m just not feeling well. was trying to continue creating with my favorite medium of art - music - because it feels/felt good but it’s hard to listen to constant imperfections knowing they could be perfected. buuuut my idea of perfection is hard to reach alone and somehow even harder when i involve others. i’m truthfully never one to settle and that goes for many aspects of my life but with that being said, i find my self settling right now… now being for the past three months. listening to demos over and over again, sending them to others, them saying it’s great leave the song as is, and so i settle. it’s hard to explain feelings i’ve never considered putting into words before but whatever i’m feeling is accompanied by a looming sense of mediocrity. i suppose it’s not “settling��� if i know future me will mature past these thoughts and move forward toward my idea of perfection. I’m calling this my hibernation phase to cope. It just feels so shitty to feel so good doing nothing. but then it feels as if i’ve been doing so much because of the constant worrying. why is comfort such a fear. why do i feel the need to meet imaginary quotas. and why do i have such a need to count progress … you move so slow when you watch so hard. i need to stop staring into this little black mirror so much and put my hands over my eyes. thinking thinking thinking

[technomanceer]

HI!!! OH MY GOD ARE YOU STILL ACTIVE CUS I WANT TO KNOW IIF YOU HAD POSTED WWOWWEE ON SPOTIFY YET?

-NUMEROUS

We very much are, just havent had anything to upload yet! We haven't released any SCP songs onto spotify, as the album is still under construction.. ^^; BUT we have a demo of Zebra V. Mantis on our Cosmic Horror album up right now!!

Playwrights Breaktime (the scp album) has been kind of a huge project to tackle, so giving a deadline might not be very reliable but we're hoping to at least complete it sometime this year!! There might have to be some revisions made though as we've been about 4 and a half months on Testosterone now and our vocal range is not nearly the same but a lot of the track instrumentals are generally complete, it's just a matter of getting the right recording for vocals which we're VERRRYYY perfectionist about LOL

tl;dr- no wowwee yet, playwrights breaktime might need re-recording, but we're still alive and working on tons of music !

(-Linux LOL)

[mendixonlinetrainingcourse]

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[scrummastercourse123]

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[ear-worthy]

Fall Season of Play On Shakespeare Podcast LIVE: Et tu, Brute?

It's disappointing that most people intersect with famed English playwright William Shakespeare in high school English and then only reference The Bard when playing pub trivia.

Play On Shakespeare, the not-for-profit organization dedicated to exploring the world of Shakespeare in performance through translation and adaptation, has been working diligently to change that perspective.

Building upon Play On Shakespeare’s mission to enhance the understanding of Shakespeare’s plays in performance, Play On Podcasts bring timeless tales directly to modern audiences. The series – presented by Next Chapter Podcasts in partnership with Play On Shakespeare – has released Macbeth, Pericles, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Coriolanus amongst various other titles over the last few years.

Play On Podcasts recently won two Signal Awards – for Best Original Music/Score (Gold) and for Best Scripted Fiction (Silver). Play On Podcasts also recently won at The Ambies – for Best Original Score and Music Supervision [Lindsay Jones for Othello].

This fall, Play On Podcasts releases Julius Caesar in a modern verse translation by Shishir Kurup. Episode 1 will drop on October 14.

Listen here.

For those who enjoy live performances, Play On Shakespeare has announced its Fall 2024 Season.

Fall 2024 Season:

Coriolanus Presented by Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Portland Center Stage Produced in association with upstart crow collective and Play On Shakespeare Now through October 13 Translation: Sean San José Adaption and Direction: Rosa Joshi Location: Thomas Theatre [Ashland, OR]

When civil unrest wracks Rome as the famine-ravaged underclass battle the ruling elite, a war hero steps into the spotlight to serve his nation—only to turn on it and seek its overthrow. Shakespeare’s rarely produced tragedy comes to visceral life in a powerful, movement-focused production featuring a cast of female and non-binary actors.

More information here.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Great Lakes Theater in partnership with Idaho Shakespeare Festival October 4 - 27 Translation: Jeff Whitty Direction: Sara Bruner Location: Great Lakes Theater - Hanna Theatre, Playhouse Square [Cleveland, OH]

An exhilarating night of midsummer madness, this magical comedy brims with mistaken identity, mismatched lovers, and mischief-making fairies. This modern verse translation of Shakespeare’s comic masterpiece ensnares two pairs of lovers and a rustic troupe of would-be actors in a forest full of comedic adventure. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a joyful celebration of love lost, transformed, and restored that casts a powerfully pleasing spell.

More information here.

The Winter’s Tale Presented by 1623 Theatre Company December 6 - January 11 Translation: Tracy Young Adaptation and Direction: Ben Spiller Location: Attenborough Arts Centre (throughout December) [Leicester, UK] Location: Derby Theatre Studio (throughout January) [Derby, UK]

It’s the toughest winter ever in Sicilia Court, a rundown council estate still waiting to be leveled up. High costs and low wages mean cold homes, hungry stomachs, and desperate minds. It’s impossible for anyone to hold their nerve here. When the king of the estate accuses his wife of cheating, he shames her in public and threatens anyone who dares to challenge him. As jealousy and rage spiral out of control, unthinkable cruelty takes over the estate and everything falls apart. Is there any hope that the truth will out, and will the community ever recover? The Winter's Tale is co-created by a team of Deaf, disabled, LGBTQ+, global majority, neurodivergent, and working-class theater-makers.

More information here.

ACMRS Press [Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies] has released all of Play On Shakespeare’s translations in print (39 titles).

Play On Shakespeare’s DEMOS project is available on YouTube. The DEMOS project is a series of vibrant, short films that demonstrate side-by-side performances of Shakespeare’s original text and the modern translations, featuring extraordinarily talented actors with a wealth of experience performing Shakespeare.

MORE ON PLAY ON SHAKESPEARE:

Play On Shakespeare is a non-profit company promoting and creating contemporary modern translations of Shakespeare’s plays. Play On Shakespeare partners with artists and organizations across the globe to deliver and advocate for these translations through theatrical productions, podcasts, and publications. For more information, visit playonshakespeare.org. Play On Shakespeare is made possible through the generous support of the Hitz Foundation.

The Hitz Foundation has projects in science, the arts, and the environment worldwide. In addition to Play On Shakespeare and Play On Podcasts, the foundation funds Global Digital Heritage, which captures state-of-the-art 3D models of museum collections and heritage sites and shares them with the world at no cost.

Before I go, here's some Shakespeare knowledge you can use to impress your friends. "According to a report by Priceonomics, A Midsummer Night's Dream gets the most professional performances nowadays. The website Shakespearances documented nearly every professional Shakespeare production worldwide, and A Midsummer Night's Dream accounted for more than 7% of all Shakespeare performances. (Together, Parts 1 and 2 of Henry VI were the least performed."

[hpowellsmith]

Facts 21-30, including lots of writing process facts:

21. Teran originated from a short tabletop game that my wife ran for me and a friend, but it was very different and involved airships and magical powers. I referenced it as a throwaway moment in Creme de la Creme as an inside joke, and then decided to flesh it out as I got further in writing the series.

22. I was originally going to force Fiore and Korzha's romances to be even more slowburn outside of the player's choice, but got impatient so I put in options to start earlier.

23. I made plans to include an optional hookup with Lucian or Lavinia in Honor Bound, and even coded it, but cut it for pacing reasons.

24. An early version of a Raffi storyline involved them struggling to pay child support for an ex-partner - not because they were the other parent but because they were old friends and Raffi didn't want them to be in difficulties.

25. There is a scene with Savarel that is spontaneous in-game, and it was spontaneous out-of-game too: I didn't plan to write it that way, but it just felt right.

26. There is an extremely silly inside joke throughout Honor Bound that is so ridiculous that I can never drop the slightest hint what it is.

27. Those who played early versions of the demo will know Jerome the cat was originally called Mathieu, but I changed it late on because of too many character names beginning with "Mat-". Mathieu was named after the playwright character Mathieu Avenerius; Jerome is named after the artist Jerome Clay from Westerlin.

28. Matilda the sheep is named after a real sheep who is legendary in my family.

29. More than one thing that happens in the game was reflected in real-world events while I was writing.

30. More than one event/element in the game is drawn from my own experiences. (All my games include this, but Honor Bound is particularly so.)

OK I thought of this last night but my wife took my phone away so I wouldn't stay up too late

With every like on this post, I'll share an Honor Bound fact, with every reblog I'll post two!

[lions-and-men-musical]

usually I start with lyrics and then move into instrumental/sheet music, but I decided to take a composition-first approach w this one.

not sure if I’ll end up actually using it, but this clip is from Born For This, and sang by odysseus

[interact-if]

[ID: Anonymous ask that reads: “Hi, do you know of any IFs with a MC that has an artistic talent or options for one? Could be anything really, drawing, singing, playing an instrument, something like that. Thanks!” /end ID]

Hi Anon,

Sorry, we deleted your ask by mistake, here is a list of IFs fitting your request! If anyone else has further suggestions, feel free to reply below where we will add those that fit in the list.

Completed:

A Player's Heart by Melissa Scott (Part of the opera)

Ballads at Midnight by @synstoria​ (Bard)

Cannonfire Concerto by Caleb Wilson (Musician)

Choice of Rock Star by Jonathan Zimmerman

Exquisite Cadaver by @manonamora-if (Writer)

Rock Robin (VN) by @happybackwards (Rock Band)

The Gray Painter by William Loman (18+)

The Play's the Thing by Jo Graham and Amy Griswold (Playwright)

Jazz Age by Nicola R. White

Demos:

Attollo by @attollogame (Option to be an artist)

Band Camp Boyfriend (VN) by @lovebirdgames (band)

Body Count by @bodycountgame (Option to be an artist)

Dear Diary, We Created a Plot Hole! by @ddwcaph-game (Writer and can be an aspiring artist/singer/musician)

Golden by @milaswriting (If music/photography has been chosen as a hobby)

Larkin by @larkin-if​

Merry Crisis by @merrycrisis-if (Option to be in a band)

Our Life (VN) by @gbpatchupdates​

The Eight Years Revolution by @eight-years-revolution​

The Northern Passage by @northern-passage​

No Demos:

Ear Candy by @earcandy-if (In a band)

Dancing with the Devil by dancingwthedavil-if (band)

[thewhizzyhead]

as someone deeply invested in the storytelling aspect of musical theatre, learning about how a musical has developed and changed over the years and hearing the demos and old versions is a wild rollercoaster for me personally because on one hand, some script and song changes make me go "OH It is incredibly interesting to see how the playwrights have developed their story over time and these changes show how the musical became more profound with every new draft and how much thought went into this damn this is cool" while other times, other script and song changes go in the opposite direction and make me go "WHY THE FUCK WOULD THEY REMOVE SUCH AN IMPORTANT ASPECT TO THE MUSICAL LITERALLY WHY" and yes this post is about ride the fucking cyclone

[le-chevalier-au-lion]

Project announcement

THIEVES OF DIVINITY

If you going to die, dying as a god-killer will at least make your name be sung for eternity.

After an accident that left dozens dead and lit the Staseele up with rumors, you were cursed. Or Blessed. Saddled with a fraction of divine power and hunted as a threat to the Eternal Glory, your only chances of survival are an overambitious group that calls itself the Thieves of Divinity and dreams of committing a crime never seen.

Kill the Gods. Rise above carnage.

Or go down choking on your last gamble.

LINKS

DEMO | ETHNICITIES

ABOUT

Thieves of Divinity is an upcoming high fantasy IF game coded on Twine in which you control the Senseless, a person out of luck and options after an accident gave them a piece of the Faceless One’s power. Considered a danger to the very Gods and with Staseele’s iron fist tightening around those deemed troublesome, their survival chances are dismal until the Thieves of Divinity offer protection as payment for one small service: killing the Gods.

FEATURES

Fully customizable MC. Choose name, gender, pronouns, appearance, weapons and magical specialization.

Origin stories. Choose between three origins: Noble, Priest, and Commoner.

Decide the world’s fate. Kill the Gods, take their place, or betray the Thieves.

Choices that matter. Influence Staseele’s political landscape, hinder or help your companions overcome their darkest demons, and change the world at large.

Relationships. Romance one (or a few) of the six main characters or embark on a queerplatonic relationship with them.

Don’t lose your sanity. Hopefully.

MAIN CHARACTERS

Seir (cis man): all-seeing prophet turned beggar turned rebel.

Hellmouth (trans woman): the most (in)famous playwright of Staseele.

Larcenist (agender person): resident noble and silver-tongue and —

Warden (cis man): prouder of being an heretic than of anything he ever was before.

Virtuoso (cis man): part time sculptor and mad scientist, full time anarchist.

Wayfarer (cis woman): keeper of secrets and huntress of divine monsters.

GAMEPLAY

Thieves of Divinity is a 16+ game, and though each chapter will have its trigger warnings, it will feature body horror, political anxiety, oppression, State violence and mental stress with such force I need to warn: take care of yourselves.

[mariacallous]

In this, one of a series of essays on the war in Ukraine from countries in or neighbouring the former Soviet bloc, a Georgian playwright says the government is out of step with the anti-Putin popular mood

When Russia’s modern tsar escalated his war by announcing the partial mobilisation of reservists on 21 September, another wave of anxiety swept over Georgia. With due acknowledgment that every word written from this region at the moment should be about, or in support of, the Ukrainian people and their struggle, this anxiety is why I’m diverting to focus briefly on how we see this brutal war from Georgia, which, thanks to historical and geopolitical misfortune, happens to be a southern neighbour of Russia.

The invasion of Ukraine has revived painful collective and personal memories of Russia’s 2008 war on Georgia. The trauma from this not-so-distant past rose to the surface again in February and has remained there. The current government of Georgia has tried to ignore it altogether, as if it had never happened.

Thousands of us have taken to the streets in huge public demonstrations in Tbilisi and other cities in support of Ukraine. But the government has steered clear, sticking to embarrassingly careful statements and not even bothering with any diplomatic courtesies towards Kyiv. Instead it deploys a “What do you want, war?” response to its own people’s appalled reaction and opposition demands, implying that joining the sanctions against Russia or acting against Russian economic interests would automatically drag Georgia into the war as well.

This is how the logic of Georgia’s government works – but it is not particularly hard to read between the lines. The ruling party (Georgian Dream) was founded by Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire former prime minister who made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s and remains so influential that he is often referred to as our “informal leader”. Nobody, least of all civil society campaigners, consider it surprising that the government has not dared to oppose Russia openly.

Against this political background few Georgians expected our politicians to take any actual steps in protest against Moscow, despite the public mood. But people are increasingly uneasy at the influx of Russian citizens who have arrived in Georgia since the start of the bombing. Russians don’t need a visa and can stay for up to a year without one, but it is worth mentioning that Georgian border control appears to be stopping nobody from crossing other than Russian opposition activists.

The situation has become more acute since 21 September, with huge numbers leaving Russia via almost every single border checkpoint with neighbouring countries. Those arriving in Georgia are fleeing not just the discomfort of western sanctions, which was the case in the weeks and months after the war began, but now include many who have no wish to lose their own lives on the battlefields in Ukraine.

At first glance, there is no problem at all in a noble act of hospitality – Georgia giving shelter to people who do not want to fight in war is truly a kind act. Beneath the surface, however, problems are brewing. Even without official numbers, a brief walk around central parts of Tbilisi is enough to confirm that the language predominantly spoken in the streets now is Russian.

Few, if any, of these displaced Russians, even if they are fleeing a totalitarian regime and positioning themselves against the war, seem keen to show off their pacifist ideas once safely in Georgia. Apart from a couple of small-scale demos, I cannot recall any significant acts of protest by relocated Russians against the war, let alone in support of Ukraine. At the end of September a popular joke circulating on Georgian social media went: “Oh, man, it is exhausting to read thousands of posts by Russian migrants freely criticising Putin’s politics and the war in Ukraine.” Of course, the truth is very few Russians have taken advantage of the (still existing) freedom of speech in Georgia.

Some are more vocal in expressing their disapproval of the graffiti in the streets supporting Ukraine or comparing Putin to male genitalia. When a bar in Tblisi began asking its Russian visitors for “visas”, issued if they ticked a “Glory to Ukraine” box, many Russians, including the reality TV star Ksenia Sobchak, protested vociferously on social media. I witnessed a Russian customer in my local cafe storm out swearing obscenities when a staff member, who did not speak Russian, politely told her the wifi password was “StandwithUkraine”.

In these instances, the complaint is always about alleged “Russophobia”. Yet a fear now widely discussed among Georgians is that these 2022 arrivals could eventually form a new Russian diaspora and in some hypothetical future scenario serve as justification for the Kremlin to order another attack on Georgia in the name of “protecting” Russian-speaking citizens. However absurd this sounds, one should not forget how Putin has weaponised language and identity issues as a pretext for invading Ukraine.

The legacy of Russian imperialism has cemented colonial attitudes in some – Georgia struggled to end its status as a Russian colony, but is still regarded by many Russians as their holiday home, their back yard, a sunny place where the likeable neighbours often speak Russian, albeit with a funny accent.

Georgian-Russian relations have a long, complex history. But the view I have long held of Russia, as a serious threat to the world order as well as neighbouring nations (a view regarded by many of my western European friends as paranoia about our former colonial masters), has been confirmed by events in Ukraine. The question is what price will have to be paid before Russia is stopped. War in Georgia in 2008 was not taken seriously, nor were the events of 2014 in Ukraine. It took horrific images of atrocities in Bucha, Mariupol and many other places for some western governments finally to take action.

Given the public outcry among Georgians about the bloodshed next door, it is pathetic that the government, which has a responsibility to act, still tries to pretend we are a third party in this war and should remain neutral.

Georgia faces a critical choice: the country has to comply with demanding criteria to acquire EU candidate status. Either the acting government gives up its Russian ties and interests, and its openly pro-Russian rhetoric, and takes adequate action in the right direction, or we remain where we have been for more than 200 years – in the cloaca of the great Russian empire. I take responsibility for the vulgar word choice. In fact, I have tried to curb the full extent of my indignation, fury and outrage in what would otherwise have been an unbroken wail – an expression of hopelessness and misery.