Rachel Bloom checks off a bucket-list dream in 'The Imaginary Invalid': 'Broadway before I turn 40'

In the classic Molière comedy, newly adapted by and starring Bill Irwin, the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend creator’s role is maid for laughter.

Summary

• Rachel Bloom makes her Broadway debut as Toinette in Bill Irwin's new adaptation of The Imaginary Invalid
• Her character is the smart and savvy maid of a hypochondriac's chaotic household
• Bloom is best known as the creator and star of the musical comedy TV show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
• Bloom discusses her long-awaited Broadway debut and how this 17th-century play speaks to modern audiences

Rachel Bloom is cleaning up in more ways than one for her Broadway debut in Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid, a classic comedy about a hypochondriac that begins September 25 at the Todd Haimes Theatre.

“I play Toinette. She’s the maid of this bougie household,” the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend creator and star told New York Theatre Guide. “She’s smarter than everyone else. She solves everything because they’re all insane.”

Tony Award winner Bill Irwin (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), a renowned actor and clown who adapted the play and stars as the illness-obsessed, chaos-causing Argan, agreed with her take on Toinette. “She really runs the household,” he said.

That, of course, is a time-tested comedy trope: Servants have the smarts and common sense their supposed superior employers clearly lack. Toinette sees through Arnad’s health hysteria, his fake and foolish physicians (they’re played by Brooks Ashmanskas), and his absurd marriage plans for his daughter (Ava Lalezarzadeh).

Toinette is a juicy role that’s, er, maid for laughs. The chance to play her in director Brandon J. Dirden’s new production is a pinch-me breakthrough. “I’m just so thrilled to be here,” said Bloom, adding that Broadway “has been hugely on my bucket list. There have been a couple opportunities that haven’t worked out. This one worked out.”

And right on time. “I get to be on Broadway before I turn 40, which is this little milestone for myself that became an imaginary milestone,” said Bloom, whose birthday is in April. “But it’s been a dream of mine since I was 5.”

That dream only intensified as she got older. "I have so many friends who've done Broadway. I was a musical theatre major. I was all up on the early Broadway gossip message boards circa 2006," she recalled. But Bloom has spent many of her own grown-up years in various other spotlights. She’s best known for the musical comedy TV series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which ran from 2015-19 and won her a Best Actress Golden Globe and an Emmy Award for music and lyrics. And in 2023, she made her Off-Broadway with the solo comedy Death, Let Me Do My Show, which was recorded for Netflix.

Now, deep into rehearsals for The Imaginary Invalid, she’s been reflecting on how “to make classic theatre relevant” in 2026.

Then again, Molière's subjects and themes — family, health, hypocrisy, and love — are certainly evergreen. If the prospect of covering them in an old French work “feels fancy,” as Bloom put it, Irwin and Dirden's production is decidedly down-to-earth. “I like the unfancy way we’re doing the show,” she said.

One way the production aims to make The Imaginary Invalid relevant is with plain-English dialogue that feels natural to our 21st-century ears without losing the integrity of the original satire.

“It doesn't take place in an influencer’s office. It takes place in the 1600s,” said Bloom. “You’d be surprised how similar people’s worries were over 350 years ago [to today]. We’re making it fun.”

Lively, too. The play belongs to a hybrid genre called comedy-ballet, which incorporates moments of song and dance that complement the musicality of the text. This production retains the music and movement, which Bloom didn't realize at first — but it’s right in her wheelhouse.

"[Toinette] is going to be like the character you've seen me play [on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend], but also totally unlike her," Bloom said. "I think the crossover between the two is joy. There's a lot of joy in the show."

The feeling is contagious — and you don’t have to be a hypochondriac to get that.

Get The Imaginary Invalid tickets now.

Gillian Russo contributed reporting for this article.

Photo credit: Rachel Bloom. (Photo courtesy of production)