| Type: | Theatre |
| Heritage Designation: | Registered Historic Monument |
| Country: | France |
| Owned By: | Administration of Paris |
The Théâtre du Rond-Point is a theatre in Paris, located at 2bis avenue Franklin-D.-Roosevelt, 8th arrondissement.
The theatre began with an 1838 project of architect Jacques Ignace Hittorff for a rotunda in the Champs Elysees. Inaugurated in 1839, this structure was integrated with other Hittorff buildings for the Exposition Universelle (1855) and destroyed the following year. A new replacement panorama, Le Panorama National, was designed by architect Gabriel Davioud at the corner of the Avenue d'Antin (now Avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt) and the Champs-Élysées.
In December 1893, the rotunda became the Palais de Glace (Ice Palace), one of the most popular attractions of Belle Epoque Paris.
In the post-war years, the Theatre du Rond-Point was one of the principal venues—along with the Theatre Marigny and the Theatre de l'Odeon—where the Madeleine Renaud-Jean-Louis Barrault Company introduced the world to many of the plays of Jean Giraudoux, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Anouilh, and Samuel Beckett.[1]
The theatre was managed by Jean-Louis Barrault from 1958 to 1968, when he was dismissed from the Gare d'Orsay during the student uprising in the spring of that year.[1] The theatre was renovated in 1981. Further renovations in were done in 2002 under the directorship of Jean-Michel Ribes. The theatre is now devoted to the work of living authors.