THE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW,
WHETHER YOU NEED ONE OR NOT

Bill Irwin makes a house call on Molière

There are hypochondriacs, and then there is Argan, the gloriously self-absorbed “professional patient” at the center of Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid. This fall, Tony winner Bill Irwin returns to Broadway, and to a playwright particularly suited to his singular physical-comedy talents, to play the man who is so preoccupied with his ailments that he plans to marry his daughter to a doctor just to keep the medical bills down. Irwin has also adapted Molière’s 17th-century comedy for this new Roundabout Theatre Company production, directed by Brandon J. Dirden in his Broadway directorial debut. Previews begin September 25 at the Todd Haimes Theatre, with an October 22 opening and a limited run through November 22.

Argan may believe himself perpetually at death’s door, but everyone around him has problems of a considerably more practical nature, particularly his daughter Angelique, who has ideas about her future that do not include becoming Dad’s personal insurance policy. Molière’s final play has been skewering doctors, medicine, family manipulation and our endless fascination with everything that might possibly be wrong with us since 1673. In Irwin’s new adaptation, translated by Doug Skinner, the old malady gets a fresh examination.

Roundabout has assembled a cast capable of making quite a house call. Joining Irwin are three-time Tony nominee Brooks Ashmanskas as Dr. Diafoirus/Purgon, Tony nominee Dylan Baker as Beralde and Rachel Bloom, the Golden Globe- and Emmy-winning creator and star of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, making her Broadway debut as Toinette. Crystal A. Dickinson plays Beline; Daniel Croix Henderson, also making his Broadway debut, is Cleante; Ava Lalezarzadeh is Angelique; and Hiram Delgado takes on the trio of Bonnefoy, Thomas and Fleurant.

Irwin and Molière are particularly enticing bedfellows. Long before his Tony-winning dramatic turn in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Irwin made his name as one of America’s great theatrical clowns, creating such works as Fool Moon, Largely New York, Old Hats and The Regard of Flight. His history with Molière includes Scapin, while his résumé ranges from Waiting for Godot and King Lear to Endgame, Eureka Day and, yes, Sesame Street. Putting that physical vocabulary inside the body of a man obsessively monitoring his own body sounds like a prescription worth filling.

Dirden, meanwhile, moves into the Broadway director’s chair after an extensive acting career that includes All the Way, Jitney, Take Me Out, Skeleton Crew and the recent Waiting for Godot. His directing work includes Eden at Yale Rep and Arthur Miller’s The Price at Two River Theater.

The design team is hardly suffering from a shortage of Broadway experience either: Beowulf Boritt (sets), Karen Perry (costumes), Allen Lee Hughes (lighting), John Gromada (sound and original music), Nikiya Mathis (hair and wigs) and Lorenzo Pisoni (movement).

More than 350 years after Molière wrote it, and reportedly collapsed during a performance of it shortly before his death, The Imaginary Invalid remains a comedy about something stubbornly contemporary: the extraordinary amount of life we can waste worrying about dying. With Irwin playing a man whose ailments may be imaginary but whose family troubles certainly aren’t, Broadway may be in for some very good medicine.

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The Imaginary Invalid
Roundabout Theatre Company
Todd Haimes Theatre, 227 West 42nd Street in New York City
previews begin September 25, 2026
opens October 22, 2026
ends on November 22, 2026
for tickets, call 212.719.1300 or visit Roundabout

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