George R. R Martin announces Game of Thrones stage play The Mad King based on the "final years before the events of the novels"

Winter is coming... again. Another Game of Thrones prequel is on the way, and this time it's set to debut on the stage.

Game of Thrones: The Mad King is slated to premiere at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre this year. Per the official press release, this "powerful drama" will span the final years before the events of the novels and reveal a "legendary chapter in Westeros history."

George R. R. Martin serves as executive producer, with Dominic Cooke directing from a script penned by award-winning playwright Duncan Macmillan. The show is set to open this summer in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Per the synopsis, all is well in Harrenhal as spring approaches. At a lavish banquet just before 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."

The announcement comes just days before the season finale of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, based on Martin's novella series The Tales of Dunk and Egg. The second-to-last Game of Thrones novel, Winds of Winter, is, uh, still coming. We'll wait.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms airs on HBO and HBO Max in the US and Sky Atlantic and NOW in the UK. House of the Dragon season 3 is set to premiere in June. For more, check out our A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms release schedule, or check out our list of the best HBO Max shows to stream right now.