Game of Thrones Heads to the Stage as Royal Shakespeare Company Announces 'The Mad King' Premiere

The wars of Westeros are leaving the screen and entering one of the most storied theatrical venues in the English-speaking world. On Wednesday, the Royal Shakespeare Company announced the world premiere of Game of Thrones: The Mad King, a new stage play adapted by Duncan Macmillan and directed by Dominic Cooke, with George R.R. Martin serving as creator and executive producer . The production will open at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon this summer, marking the first time Martin's sprawling fantasy saga has been adapted for live theatre.

The play is a prequel set more than a decade before the events of the original Game of Thrones narrative. Its action centres on the legendary Tourney at Harrenhal — an event referenced repeatedly across Martin's novels as the catalyst for Robert's Rebellion and the eventual downfall of House Targaryen . Characters from houses Targaryen, Stark, Lannister, Baratheon and Martell will feature, including young versions of figures familiar to millions of readers and viewers . In Martin's books, the tourney was attended by a young Ned Stark, Robert Baratheon and Jaime Lannister .

The RSC's official synopsis describes a world emerging from a long winter, where a lavish banquet on the eve of a jousting tournament brings lovers together as revellers speculate about who will contend. But beneath the festive surface, dissenters within the Mad King's inner circle advance a treasonous plot amid growing unease at his merciless rule . The description promises a story in which family bonds, ancient prophecies and the sacred line of succession are tested in a dangerous campaign for power — where wars are won not by those with the most cause, but by those whose story is best told .

Martin said in a statement that when he first wrote Game of Thrones, he never imagined it would be anything other than a book — a place for his imagination to exist without limits . He expressed surprise that it had been adapted for television and said he welcomed the stage adaptation with great enthusiasm, describing theatre as a unique medium where his imagination and the audience's could meet to create something magical. He called the RSC the obvious choice for staging a Game of Thrones story, noting that Shakespeare is the greatest name in English literature and has been a constant inspiration for his own writing . Shakespeare, Martin observed, faced similar challenges in putting battles on stage, which made the RSC natural company for the endeavour. He also praised Macmillan's script as masterful, saying he was excited for both fans of the series and newcomers to experience the story in a theatre .

The creative team behind The Mad King brings considerable theatrical pedigree. Macmillan's previous credits include Lungs, People, Places and Things, and an acclaimed adaptation of George Orwell's 1984 co-written with Robert Icke . Cooke, recently appointed artistic director of London's Almeida Theatre, previously served as artistic director of the Royal Court Theatre from 2007 to 2013 and directed the films The Courier and On Chesil Beach . In a joint statement, Macmillan and Cooke described the play as a prequel in which all the great houses come together for a tournament destined to be the greatest of the age, after a long winter has started to thaw . They said Martin's storytelling is Shakespearean in its scale and themes — encompassing dynastic struggle, ambition, rebellion, madness, prophecy and ill-fated love — and that Shakespeare's histories and tragedies had been their primary reference for the production's ambition from the beginning .

RSC co-artistic directors Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey endorsed the parallel, saying that upon reading Macmillan's script it was immediately apparent how the play's epic cycle of warring families sits in a continuum with Shakespeare's own history cycles . They described the adaptation as exploring the true nature of authority through the lens of young people grappling with inherited identities, and predicted that the story would deliver the epic qualities audiences expect from Game of Thrones while retaining a very human heart .

The production is co-produced with Simon Painter, Tim Lawson, Mark Manuel, Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures on behalf of HBO, and Sir Leonard Blavatnik and Danny Cohen for Access Entertainment . The involvement of Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures and HBO signals that the stage adaptation has full institutional backing from the franchise's screen custodians, potentially opening the door to further theatrical expansions if the premiere proves successful.

Priority tickets will go on sale April 14, with fans encouraged to sign up for RSC membership for early access . The timing places the production in direct competition with a crowded summer entertainment calendar, but the Game of Thrones brand retains formidable drawing power: HBO's prequel series House of the Dragon has sustained audience interest in Westeros, and the Tourney at Harrenhal was a centrepiece of its second season.

The broader question is whether The Mad King marks a new frontier for prestige IP adaptation on the stage. Major franchises have already proved that theatrical versions can become long-running commercial juggernauts — Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which premiered at London's Palace Theatre in 2016, ran for years in the West End and spawned productions on Broadway, Melbourne and beyond. If The Mad King can capture a similar dynamic, it could reshape how studios think about extending their most valuable properties beyond screens.

For Martin, whose name has become synonymous with delays on The Winds of Winter, the play also represents a different kind of creative engagement — one where the author steps back into the role of executive producer rather than sole creator. The result, by all accounts, is a self-contained narrative designed to satisfy both devoted fans and complete newcomers to the material. Whether live theatre can replicate the scale audiences associate with the franchise — dragons, armies, epic battles — remains the core artistic challenge. But the choice of the RSC, with its centuries-long tradition of staging history's most ambitious dramas, suggests the creative team is betting that intimacy and theatrical craft can offer something the screen adaptations have not: a return to the character-driven political intrigue that made Martin's novels a phenomenon in the first place.