For a few years now, we've known that playwright Duncan Macmillan and director Dominic Cooke were working on a stage play set in the universe of Game of Thrones. The play will be set at the Tourney at Harrenhal, an important event that went down some years before the main meat of the story. It was at this tourney that Prince Rhaegar Targaryen openly professed his love for Lyanna Stark, despite the fact that he was married at the time to Elia Martell and Lyanna was betrothed to Robert Baratheon. That set off a chain of events that led to Robert's Rebellion, which ended with the Targaryens deposed, Robert on the Iron Throne, and an infant Daenerys Targaryen sent across the Narrow Sea to be raised in exile.
Also present at the tourney were younger versions of characters like Ned Stark and Jaime Lannister. All in all, it sounds like a great setting for a play.
A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin is heading to the U.K. soon and hopes to meet with Macmillan and Cooke. Writing on his Not a Blog, he gave us an update on the play:
"HARRENHAL was our first title, since it is set during the fateful Harrenhal tourney, but now we are leaning toward THE IRON THRONE. It’s coming along well, I am told. Young Ned, Young Robert, Lyanna, [Rhaegar], Howland Reed… should be fun. And jousting. On stage. The dream is to open somewhere on London’s West End in 2025… but there’s still a lot of work to do."
There's some interesting info in there! We already knew the title was The Iron Throne, although that could yet change before the play makes it to stage. (I prefer the title Harrenhal myself; "The Iron Throne" is already the title of the Game of Thrones series finale.) I am 100% down for jousting on stage. As for the hopeful premiere date of 2025, I won't hold my breath on that one; Martin isn't the best when it comes to predicting release dates.
The idea of taking a successful franchise to the stage is becoming more and more popular lately. The Harry Potter story continued onstage with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in 2016, and the Stranger Things play Stranger Things: The First Shadow bowed last year. It's all part of managing a multi-media franchise these days. We'll see how well the Game of Thrones version of that turns out.
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