Matthew Broderick will play the title character (or rather, the title charlatan) in a starry revival of Molière’s classic French comedy “Tartuffe,” as reimagined by Lucas Hnath (“A Doll’s House, Part 2”) and directed by Sarah Benson, at Off-Broadway’s New York Theatre Workshop in the fall. He will be joined by David Cross (“Arrested Development”), Bianca Del Rio (“”RuPaul’s Drag Race”), Amber Gray (“Hadestown”), Lisa Kron (“Fun Home”), Francis Jue (who just won a Tony Award for “Yellow Face”), and Emily Davis (“Is This A Room”).

Notably, “Tartuffe” arrives amid a mini-Molière moment Off-Broadway. Red Bull Theater is currently presenting Jeffrey Hatcher’s update of “The Imaginary Invalid” with a cast that includes Mark Linn-Baker (“Perfect Strangers”) and Sarah Stiles (“Hand to God”). Even if it doesn’t live up to Hatcher’s retake on Gogol’s “The Inspector General” from 2017, it makes for brisk, door-slamming fun. (It follows last month’s production of “The Imaginary Invalid” by Moliere in the Park.) In Downtown Brooklyn, performance artist Taylor Mac is starring in “Prosperous Fools,” a freewheeling spin on “The Bourgeois Gentleman” produced by Theatre for a New Audience.

Together, these productions form an accidental but timely festival of Molière’s biting social satires, each one revolving around deluded, egotistical men whose self-deception leads to farcical downfall. Here’s hoping another company will come along and produce “The Misanthrope,” which is widely considered Molière’s greatest play.

‘Spelling Bee’ to receive Off-Broadway revival

It’s time to dust off the dictionaries and brush up on your obscure root words: “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” is coming back to New York. In celebration of its 20th anniversary, the 2005 musical comedy by composer-lyricist William Finn and book-writer Rachel Sheinkin will return this fall for a limited 14-week engagement at New World Stages, with previews starting Nov. 7. This new production, directed and choreographed by Danny Mefford (“Kimberly Akimbo,” “Dear Evan Hansen”), promises to revive the quirky, quick-witted charm that made “Spelling Bee” an unlikely Broadway hit two decades ago. Mefford recently directed “Spelling Bee” at the Kennedy Center (shortly before its takeover by the Trump administration), with a cast that included Bonnie Milligan (“Kimberly Akimbo”), Beanie Feldstein (“Funny Girl”), Kevin McHale (“Glee”), and Taran Killam (“Saturday Night Live”).

The musical, which invites a handful of audience members to join the action onstage, follows a group of eccentric adolescent spellers as they navigate cutthroat competition, puberty, and perfectly pronounced pathos. The revival arrives just months after the passing of William Finn, whose vibrant and neurotic musical voice helped define offbeat, character-driven musicals like “Falsettos” and “A New Brain.”

Classic Stage to produce ‘The Baker’s Wife’

A half-century since it stumbled during its out-of-town tryout run, the Stephen Schwartz musical “The Baker’s Wife” (best remembered for featuring the standout solo “Meadowlark,” which has become a cabaret standard) will receive a full Off-Broadway production in the fall by Classic Stage Company staged by Gordon Greenberg, who previously directed the musical at Paper Mill Playhouse and the York Theatre Company. The Classic Stage season will also include “Marcel on the Train,” a new play by Ethan Slater and Marshall Pailet in which Slater will play the French mime Marcel Marceau, and the New York premiere of Thornton Wilder’s final play “The Emporium.”