Aerys II Targaryen has been a rumor for 30 years. A name whispered by characters who survived him, a warning, a burned corpse of a backstory. Now he’s got a face, and it belongs to Michael Shaeffer.
The Royal Shakespeare Company dropped the first photo and full cast for Game of Thrones: The Mad King on Saturday, and the thing you notice first is how ordinary these people look. No dragons in the frame. No fire. Just nine actors standing in a row, playing the generation that got everything wrong.
Who’s standing where
Left to right, the portrait gives you Tanisha Spring as Ashara Dayne, Elizabeth Ayodele as Princess Elia Martell, Mariah Gayle as Queen Rhaella Targaryen, Callum Woodhouse as Lord Robert Baratheon, Shaeffer as King Aerys II Targaryen, Harmony Rose-Bremner as Lyanna Stark, Luke Brady as Brandon Stark, Noah Ritter as Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and Michael Abubakar as Eddard Stark.
Read that lineup again. Every one of those names carries a body count or a grave.
The show opens Saturday, Aug. 8, at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, and runs through Saturday, Sept. 5, 2026. It was announced back in February.
Thirty years since the book
The timing isn’t an accident. The release also marks the 30th anniversary of the original publication of George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones, the first novel in the A Song of Ice and Fire series.
Duncan Macmillan adapted it from Martin’s works. Dominic Cooke directs. According to the official press release, the play spans “the final years before the events of the novels” and “reveals a legendary chapter of Westerosi history.”
Which is a polite way of saying: the tourney at Harrenhal, the crown of blue roses, the wildfire, all of it.
The full company
Here’s the cast of George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones: The Mad King in alphabetical order:
Michael Abubakar (Eddard Stark), Elizabeth Ayodele (Princess Elia Martell), Maxim Ays (Ser Jaime Lannister), Miles Barrow (Benjen Stark), Islam Bouakkaz (Howland Reed), Luke Brady (Brandon Stark), Marty Breen (Catelyn Stark), Sebastian Charles (Owen Merryweather / Ensemble / Puppeteer), Adrian Christopher (Prince Lewyn Martell / Ensemble / Puppeteer), Ronan Cullen (On-stage Swing / Puppeteer), Fred Davis (Qarlton Chelsted / Maester / Ensemble / Puppeteer), Edem-Ita Duke (Oberyn Martell), Simi Egbejumi-David (Ensemble / Puppeteer), Daisy Franks (Cersei Lannister / Golda Whent / Ensemble / Puppeteer), Mariah Gale (Queen Rhaella Targaryen / Lady Shella Whent), Richard Hansell (Grand Maester Pycelle), Daniel Hawksford (Ser Barristan Selmy), Lewis Howard (Ensemble / Puppeteer), April Nerissa Hudson (Ensemble / Puppeteer), Tom Larkin (Lord Whent / Wisdom Rossart / Ensemble / Puppeteer), Chelsea Marie (Ensemble / Puppeteer), Kel Matsena (Ser Arthur Dayne), Shaun Yusuf McKee (Ser Gerold Hightower / Ensemble / Puppeteer), Alexander Newland (Lord Rickard Stark), Hughie O’Donnell (Lord Varys), Huw Parmenter (Ser Oswell Whent), Noah Ritter (Prince Rhaegar Targaryen), Harmony Rose-Bremner (Lyanna Stark), Kate Rowsell (On-stage Swing / Puppeteer), Michael Shaeffer (King Aerys II Targaryen), Tanisha Spring (Ashara Dayne), Tom Stacy (On-stage Swing / Puppeteer), Matt Tait (Ensemble / Puppeteer), Tzarina-Nassor (Ensemble / Puppeteer), Marcello Walton (Ser Jonothor Darry / Lord Tywin Lannister) and Callum Woodhouse (Lord Robert Baratheon).
Count the puppeteers. There are a lot of them, and nobody has said yet what they’re operating.
The people building it
Beyond Cooke and Macmillan, the creative team includes Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell (Lume) on puppetry and movement, set designer Chloe Lamford, costume designer Georgia McGuinness, lighting designer Jon Clark, composer Will Stuart and sound designer Tom Gibbons.
Amy Ball CDG is casting director. Bethan Clark is fight director, Ingrid Mackinnon intimacy director. Jeannette Nelson handles voice and text, Hazel Holder dialect. Emily Raymond is associate director and Scarlet Wilderink associate puppetry and movement.
Francesca Roche is period dance consultant, Ti Mikkel creative consultant, Lenore Gallegos director’s consultant. Oli Simonon is associate puppetry designer, Machiko Weston associate set designer, Alex Berry associate costume designer, Lucía Sánchez Roldan associate lighting designer and Alex Twiselton associate sound designer. Bellaray Bertrand-Webb is assistant director.
A period dance consultant. For a play about a king who burned people alive. That’s the kind of detail that tells you what the tone is going to be before the first scene.
Who’s paying for it
Game of Thrones: The Mad King is co-produced with Simon Painter, Tim Lawson, Mark Manuel, Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures, HBO and Sir Leonard Blavatnik and Danny Cohen for Access Entertainment.
HBO’s name on a Stratford-upon-Avon playbill is its own kind of Westerosi alliance. But the address matters more than the logos. Aerys gets his tragedy staged in the same theater that’s been doing Lear for a century, in front of audiences who already know how the story ends and will watch anyway.
