First ‘Game of Thrones’ Stage Play Premieres This Summer

The Game of Thrones book series may never reach its planned ending, but the Game of Thrones universe keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger anyway.

Along with the incomplete pile of books and the continually growing series of prequels and spinoffs on HBO, we can now add a theatrical production. Game of Thrones: The Mad King will premiere this summer from the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Here is how they describe the play:

Enter the world before. A long winter thaws in Harrenhal, and spring is promised. At a lavish banquet on the eve of a jousting tournament, lovers meet and revellers speculate about who will contend. But in the shadows, amid growing unease at the bloodthirsty actions of the realm’s merciless Mad King, dissenters from his inner circle anxiously advance a treasonous plot. Far away, the drums of battle sound. Family bonds, ancient prophecies, and the sacred line of succession will be tested in a dangerous campaign for power. Who will survive? Who will rise?

Game of Thrones writer George R.R. Martin is the creator of the show. Duncan Macmillan is credited as the “Adaptor” and the play is being directed by Dominic Cooke.

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No casting was announced for the show as of yet.

The Game of Thrones stage play follows just a few months after the debut of a similar show set in the world of Stranger Things, The First Shadow, another backstory-laden prequel that began in London and later came to Broadway. (It is still running there at the Marquis Theater.)

Game of Thrones: The Mad King premieres this summer at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Given the way of the world, if the play is well-received a transfer to Broadway seems like an inevitability. Meanwhile, the Game of Thrones TV universe is up to two prequels — House of the Dragon and the currently airing A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms — with others in various stages of development.