4 wild details from The Mad King that completely change Game of Thrones canon The biggest D&D news and announcements from Gen Con 2026 4 wild details from The Mad King that completely change Game of Thrones canon Meet the newest Game of Thrones cast Game Of Thrones Sign in to your Polygon.com account The Royal Shakespeare Company has unveiled the cast for George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones: The Mad King , a new stage play based on A Song of Ice and Fire that is set to open next week.
In the released image, we see the play's opening-day cast in costume for their characters. Michael Shaeffer's King Aerys II Targaryen is in the center of the image and is surrounded by the actors portraying Ashara Dayne, Elia Martell, Rhaella Targaryen, Robert Baratheon, Lyanna Stark, Brandon Stark, Rhaegar Targaryen, and Eddard Stark.
If you're unfamiliar with The Mad King, it's a stage play set a decade before the events of the A Song of Ice and Fire book series and Game of Thrones TV show, and mostly takes place at a dinner banquet in the waning years of King Aerys II Targaryen's rule. It's a fascinating part of the franchise's history that serves as an inciting incident for what comes next, but we haven't seen it portrayed like this before.
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