Deadline (via SFFGazette.com) has confirmed that the next Game of Thrones adaptation will take place on stage. According to the trade, author George R.R. Martin is bringing Westeros to the Royal Shakespeare Company's flagship Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon this summer.
Theatre veteran Dominic Cooke has been developing The Mad King for several years with award-winning playwright Duncan Macmillan (Martin has also been involved from a creative standpoint).
Set 15 years before the events of Game of Thrones, the story takes place during a jousting tournament in Harrenhal. Ned Stark, his sister Lynna, Jamie Lannister, and Robert Baratheon are described as the "main characters" by Cooke, who says they're "the characters that people really know but much younger." Varys and a few other familiar faces will also appear in minor roles.
"One of our ambitions is to make a show that really works for people who don’t know the material as people who do and every sort of shade in between," Cooke adds, "because obviously there will be people who come who don’t know it, and we want to give them a satisfying evening as well."
"So we’ve sort of tried to make a contained thing as well as something that gives the fans all the extra bits of story that they don’t know."
Cooke notes that "there's a bit of a Romeo and Juliet-type story" with Lyanna (who has been promised to Robert Baratheon) and Rhaegar Targaryen, the son of Aerys, the titular Mad King. According to Macmillan, she is the "catalyst for so much that follows. In fact, I’d say that without Lyanna Stark, there is no Game of Thrones."
Describing Lyanna, Cooke revealed, "She’s a really good swords person, so she doesn’t really fit the mold of how the women at that time were supposed to behave. But she’s also very intuitive and very smart, and she’s a live wire. She’s got a rebellious streak to her and also, like everyone in that world, if you’re in these high families, you have to conform. And this is where it’s rather like in Shakespeare."
Of course, as we learned in the Game of Thrones TV series, Lyanna is the mother of Jon Snow. Rhaegar Targaryen was the father, so the appeal of this stage play will be seeing when and where their romance began.
Casting is reportedly underway, and offers have been made to actors for two of the key roles. Lyanna sounds like the main star, and The Mad King will feature a primarily young cast.
"The main characters, apart from the king, they’re all sort of in their 20s. If you think about Ned, he was played by Sean Bean in the TV show, and we are playing him in his 20s," Cooke says. "So it’s just interesting to see them as young people. Part of the essence of this show is a story of growing up, rites of passage, people becoming who they are."
Following its run in Stratford-upon-Avon, it's said that the play could head to London's Gillian Lynne Theatre. Given the success of Stranger Things: The First Shadow, it's a little surprising that it's taken this long for Westeros to head to the stage.
Tickets for Game of Thrones: The Mad King will go on sale this April.