“The Imaginary Invalid” Begins Broadway Previews: Bill Irwin Returns to Molière With an Ensemble of “Comic Assassins”

The Roundabout Theatre Company brings to Broadway a new adaptation of Molière’s “The Imaginary Invalid” (Le Malade imaginaire). Previews begin today, Friday, September 25, 2026, at the Todd Haimes Theatre, with the official opening set for October 22. The production is a limited engagement, scheduled to run through November 22.

Tony winner Bill Irwin will not only play Argan — the professional hypochondriac who plans to marry off his daughter to a doctor to save on medical bills — but has also written the new adaptation of the French classic himself. The director is Tony-nominated Brandon J. Dirden, directing a Broadway production for the first time.

For Irwin, the project fulfills a long-held love of Molière. “This is my favorite Molière play,” he told BroadwayWorld. “I like this one because it’s ragged. It’s like a fever dream. He wrote it when he was sick and he wrote it so he could play it before he died, which he just barely made” — words that explain why the comedy the French playwright wrote while ill, shortly before his death, still carries such singular energy today.

The cast is rounded out by Brooks Ashmanskas, Dylan Baker, Rachel Bloom — the Golden Globe winner making her Broadway debut as Toinette — Hiram Delgado, Crystal A. Dickinson, Daniel Croix Henderson and Ava Lalezarzadeh. Dirden describes the group as an ensemble of “comic assassins”: “This cast is chock full of just assassins — comedic assassins,” saying it is “a dream” to work with them.

Irwin sees the centuries-old comedy as a forebear of modern entertainment. “It is the forebear of all the sitcoms that we grew up on and we have running in our heads,” he said, “you can feel it being born.” BroadwayWorld also published rehearsal photos showing the clown-play atmosphere in the Todd Haimes Theatre rehearsal room.

Source: BroadwayWorld