Annaleigh Ashford, Mark Linn-Baker & More to Star in Red Bull Theater's IMAGINARY INVALID

RED BULL THEATER has revealed the cast for the next offering of a new season of OBIE Award-winning Revelation Readings: The Imaginary Invalid by Molière, adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher (The Government Inspector, The Alchemist) and directed by Jesse Berger.

This event will premiere live in-person at Florence Gould Hall at FIAF and simulcast online on Monday February 19th at 7:30pm. The recording will be available On-Demand from Tuesday, February 20th at 7:30 PM ET through Sunday, February 25th at 11:59 PM ET. This reading is produced in partnership with the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF).


To purchase tickets for the in-person presentation, online simulcast or subsequent viewing, go to www.redbulltheater.com/the-imaginary-invalid. 


Featured in the cast will be Annaleigh Ashford (Sweeney Todd - Tony nomination, Drama Desk Award, Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance; You Can't Take It With You - Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award; Kinky Boots - Tony nomination, Drama Desk nomination, Actors Equity Clarence Derwent Award; “Welcome to Chippendales” - Emmy nomination), Jordan Boatman (most recently seen off-Broadway in Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors; for Red Bull Theater: Volpone, or The Fox; The Niceties for Manhattan Theatre Club/McCarter/Huntington Theatre - Elliot Norton Award: Outstanding Actress), Will Brill (Broadway: Stereophonic - opening in April, Act One, You Can't Take It with You, Oklahoma!; Off-Broadway: Stereophonic, A Case for the Existence of God — Drama Desk nomination; Tribes - Outer Critics Circle nomination; TV: Roy Cohn in “Fellow Travelers,” Noah Weissman in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”), Arnie Burton (for Red Bull: The Mystery of Irma Vep - Drama League nomination; The Government Inspector. Most recently: Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors; Broadway: Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps; Off-Broadway: Lewiston/Clarkston - Drama Desk nomination; Timon of Athens - Royal Shakespeare Company/Shakespeare Theatre Company/Theatre for a New Audience); Kelley Curran (for Red Bull: ‘Tis Pity She's a Whore - Actors Equity Joe A. Callaway Award, The Duchess of Malfi; TV: “The Gilded Age;” Broadway: Present Laughter; Off-Broadway: The Half-God of Rainfall - New York Theatre Workshop/American Repertory Theater; The Winter's Tale - Theatre for a New Audience; Angels in America - Signature Theatre; The Dingdong - Drama League nomination), Mark Linn-Baker (for Red Bull: The School for Scandal;  The Clandestine Marriage, Tonight at 8:30; Broadway: The Music Man opposite Hugh Jackman, On the 20th Century, You Can't Take It With You, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, A Year With Frog and Toad - Drama League nomination), Lorenzo Pisoni (Broadway: Equus, Henry IV; Humor Abuse - Drama Desk Award, Obie Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award; The Explorers Club, Golden Age - Manhattan Theatre Club), and John Yi (Broadway: KPOP;  Soft Power - Center Theatre Group/Public Theater, Snow In Midsummer - Classic Stage Company).


In Molière’s best loved comedy, Monsieur Argan is a notorious hypochondriac whose nonexistent illnesses blind him to the con men and women (his new wife) who prey on his fears to fatten their purses. His plan: marry his daughter to a doctor so he'll have free round-the-clock on-site healthcare for the rest of his life. Newly translated by Mirabelle Ordinaire and adapted for Red Bull by Jeffrey Hatcher, The Imaginary Invalid  is a brilliant satire of doctors, lawyers, and would-be patients who take self-care to staggering levels of pathological solipsism.  A comic whirlwind of pills, lovers, therapies, disguises, vaccinations, impersonations, masks, mindfulness and miracle cures.

Revelation Readings offer the unique opportunity to hear rarely-produced classic plays, and brand new plays in conversation with the classics, performed by the finest actors in New York. This year’s slate of readings is sure to delight audiences all season long. 

ABOUT THE PLAY

“The Imaginary Invalid  is one of Molière's most famous and oft-produced plays. But it’s been produced in New York only four times, twice on Broadway, twice off-Broadway, and not in recent memory.  As with any comedy written long ago and in a foreign language, it's vital that its translation into English, and in this case its adaptation, account for the difference between the core of the play -- its plot, characters, and themes -- and its expression -- its dialogue and idiom. What was funny in the 17th century isn’t necessarily funny now, and what’s funny in French isn’t always funny in English.  Most important, the play's central character, Monsieur Argan, must be played by an actor who is classically trained, a comedian and like-able. Too many versions of The Imaginary Invalid make Argan a nasty fool. Not that he isn’t a fool: he does things he shouldn't, like try to marry his daughter to a doctor so he'll have free on-site healthcare, and if she refuses he'll send her to a convent. But for the comedy to work, the audience must be engaged by Argan, so he’s got to be played by an actor the audience cares about. Mark Linn-Baker is that actor, and this adaptation is tailored to Mark’s talents, along with those of the company of actors who support him. 

"The play is about a hypochondriac who thinks he's at death's door. His imaginary illnesses blind him to the con men - and women (his new wife) - who use his weakness to fatten their purses. His hypochondria also affects his relationship with his daughter Angelique who wants to marry her lover, Cleante. The tropes and terminology of the play have to do with medicine, the body, physical, mental and spiritual health. Much of the original text concerns the state of medicine and chicanery in France circa 1672.  Without updating or changing the setting of the play, we have fun with notions of self-care, mindfulness, masks, vaccinations, therapies, spas, plastic surgery and cryogenics.  Argan's pathological solipsism resonates with our own post-pandemic concerns, our panic about illness, our obsession with or resistance to dictates from on high, and our search for miracle cures like Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine. Argan is just the sort of man who would use his wealth and position to make sure he got the first Covid test, the first vaccine, and if he got the virus, he'd see to it he had the best hospital suite and round-the-clock care - as if he were the President,” says  Jeffrey Hatcher.

ABOUT MOLIÈRE

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was born in Paris in 1622 into a high bourgeois family; his father was Royal Upholsterer. After being educated in a prestigious Jesuit school he is said to have studied law, then taken over his father's position but soon abandoned it. Instead, under the pseudonym Molière, he, Madeleine Béjart, and a few friends created a theatre troupe, “L'illustre théâtre” ("The illustrious theatre") in 1643. Their first shows were failures and Molière was thrown into debtor’s prison. Upon his release he took the lead of the troupe, both as director, principal actor, and occasional playwright, and went on the road, performing in French provincial towns and earning his first successes. In 1658 the troupe successfully mounted its first performance in front of the King. Les précieuses ridicules (The Affected Young Women, 1659), Molière's first major play, was a success at court and in Paris, and launched his playwriting career for good. In 1662 he married Madeleine Béjart's sister-- or possibly her daughter-- Armande; Louis XIV was the godfather of their first child. Molière participated in the major celebrations Louis XIV organized at Versailles, and the troupe became the King's troupe in 1665; but his plays, especially the more religiously or socially virulent ones, were not all well received. Tartuffe (1664) and Dom Juan (1665) were both forbidden, and The Misanthrope (1666) enjoyed only mild success. Toward the end of his life Molière focused on comedies, with, among others, L'avare (The Miser, 1668), Le bourgeois gentilhomme (The Bourgeois Gentleman,1670), and Les femmes savantes (The Learned Ladies, 1672). Molière died right after a performance of his last play, Le malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid, 1673), a few days after opening night. Because he was so famous, Louis XIV exceptionally authorized a Christian burial for him. Soon after, Molière's troupe merged with the Troupe du Marais, and in 1680, by order of the King, the new troupe merged with the troupe of the Hôtel de Bourgogne: the Comédie Française was born.

ABOUT Jeffrey Hatcher

Jeffrey Hatcher’s work was last presented by Red Bull Theater in 2023 with the thriller Arden of Faversham, adapted with Kathryn Walat. Prior to that Red Bull has presented his acclaimed romp The Alchemist and his hit version of inane corruption à la Gogol, The Government Inspector starring Michael Urie. His Broadway credits include Never Gonna Dance (book). Off-Broadway credits include Three Viewings and A Picasso at Manhattan Theatre Club; Scotland Road and The Turn of the Screw at Primary Stages; Tuesdays with Morrie (with Mitch Albom) at the Minetta Lane; Murder by Poe, The Turn of the Screw, and The Spy at The Acting Company; and Neddy at American Place. Other credits include Compleat Female Stage Beauty, Mrs. Mannerly, Murderers, Mercy of a Storm, Smash, Korczak's Children, To Fool the Eye, Confederacy of Dunces, The Critic, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and others at The Guthrie, Old Globe, Yale Rep, The Geffen, Seattle Rep, Cincinnati Playhouse, Cleveland Playhouse, South Coast Rep, Arizona Theater Company, San Jose Rep, The Empty Space, Indiana Rep, Children’s Theater Company, History Theater, Madison Rep, Intiman, Illusion, Denver Center, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Milwaukee Rep, Repertory Theater of St. Louis, Actors Theater of Louisville, Philadelphia Theater Company, Huntington, Shakespeare Theatre (D.C.), Asolo, City Theater, Studio Arena and dozens more in the U.S. and abroad. Film and television credits include Stage Beauty, Casanova, The Duchess, Mr. Holmes, and episodes of “Columbo” and "The Mentalist." Grants/awards: NEA, TCG, Lila Wallace Fund, Rosenthal New Play Prize, Frankel Award, Charles MacArthur Fellowship Award, McKnight Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Barrymore Award Best New Play, and IVEY Award Best New Play. He is a member and/or alumnus of The Playwrights Center, the Dramatists Guild, the Writers Guild, and New Dramatists.

ABOUT Jesse Berger

Jesse Berger has directed Pericles, The Revenger’s Tragedy, Edward the Second, Women Beware Women, The Duchess of Malfi, The Witch of Edmonton, The Maids, Volpone, Loot, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, The Changeling, The Government Inspector, The Alchemist, and Arden of Faversham since founding Red Bull Theater in 2003. Jesse has also directed across the country at Denver Center (Richard III), The Old Globe (Othello), Pittsburgh Public Theatre (Venus in Fur, Circle Mirror Transformation, An Iliad, A Number, I Am My Own Wife, The Laramie Project), PlayMakers Rep (An Iliad), Barrington Stage (Absurd Person Singular, Sleuth), Great Lakes Theater Festival, Dorset Theatre Festival, Washington Shakespeare Company, and the Utah, Idaho, and St. Louis Shakespeare Festivals, among others. Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Direction (Marat/Sade), Drama League and Lucille Lortel Award nominations for Outstanding Revival (The Maids); SDC Callaway Award nominations for Excellence in Directing (The Government Inspector, The Witch of Edmonton, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore), OBIE Award for Outstanding Direction (The Government Inspector).

ABOUT FIAF

French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) is the home of francophone cultures and French language: a beacon from New York to the world. As an independent, not-for-profit organization, FIAF is committed to providing our audience and students with engaging French language classes and audacious multi-disciplinary programming that celebrates the diversity of francophone cultures and creativity around the world. 

ABOUT RED BULL THEATER

Red Bull Theater, hailed as “the city’s gutsiest classical theater” by Time Out New York, brings rarely seen classic plays to dynamic new life for contemporary audiences, uniting a respect for tradition with a modern sensibility. Named for the rowdy Jacobean playhouse that illegally performed plays in England during the years of Puritan rule, Red Bull Theater is New York City’s home for dynamic performances of great plays that stand the test of time. With the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as its cornerstone, the company also produces new works that are in conversation with the classics. A home for artists, scholars, and students, Red Bull Theater delights and engages the intellect and imagination of audiences, and strives to make its work accessible, diverse, and welcoming to all. We value and practice inclusiveness, equity, and diversity in all of our activities, and are committed to antiracist action. Red Bull Theater believes in the power of great classic stories and plays of heightened language to deepen our understanding of the human condition, in the special ability of live theater to create unique, collective experiences, and in the timeless capacity of classical theater to illuminate the events of our times. Variety agreed, hailing Red Bull’s work as: “Proof that classical theater can still be surprising after hundreds of years.”

Since its debut in 2003 with a production of Shakespeare’s Pericles starring Daniel Breaker, Red Bull Theater has served adventurous theatergoers with Off-Broadway productions, Revelation Readings, and the annual Short New Play Festival. The company also offers outreach programs including Shakespeare in Schools bringing professional actors and teaching artists into public school classrooms; Bull Sessions, free post-play discussions with top scholars; and Classical Acting Intensives led by veteran theater professionals. During the pandemic, Red Bull created several new and ongoing programs to serve audiences and artists with our mission: the Red Bull Theater Podcast, Online Readings, Seminars, and more.

"The classics-shaking Red Bull Theater,” as Time Out NY has called it, has produced 24 Off-Broadway productions and over 200 Revelation Readings of rarely seen classics, serving a community of more than 5,000 artists and providing quality artistic programming to an audience of over 65,000. The company’s unique programming has received ongoing critical acclaim and has been recognized with Lortel, Drama Desk, Drama League, Callaway, Off-Broadway Alliance, and OBIE nominations and Awards.

For more information about the Revelation Readings, or any of Red Bull Theater's programs, visit www.redbulltheater.com.

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