The Théâtre du Rond-Point () is a theatre in Paris, located at 2bis avenue Franklin-D.-Roosevelt,
8th arrondissement.
History
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
Jean-Louis Bernard Barrault (; 8 September 1910 – 22 January 1994) was a French actor, director and mime artist who worked on both screen and stage.
Biography
Barrault was born in Le Vésinet in France in 1910. His father was 'a Burgundi ...
Company introduced the world to many of the plays of
Jean Giraudoux
Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux (; ; 29 October 1882 – 31 January 1944) was a French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright. He is considered among the most important French dramatists of the period between World War I and World War II.
His wo ...
,
Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco (; ; born Eugen Ionescu, ; 26 November 1909 – 28 March 1994) was a Romanian-French playwright who wrote mostly in French, and was one of the foremost figures of the French avant-garde theatre#Avant-garde, French avant-garde th ...
,
Jean Anouilh
Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh (; ; 23 June 1910 – 3 October 1987) was a French dramatist and screenwriter whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1944 play ...
, and
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...
.
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.
[ 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.
]
References
External links
Official website
Theatres in Paris
Buildings and structures in the 8th arrondissement of Paris
World's fair architecture in Paris
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