Ambassador Theatre (Dublin)

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The Ambassador Theatre is located at the top ofO'Connell Street in Dublin. It is part of the Rotunda Hospital complex and is a Rotunda itself - a circular room with the largest open span 80 feet of unsupported ceiling. It has a seating capaticiy of over 900.

It has played host over the years to many types of entertainments including readings by Charles Dickens, and in the 1940s became a cinema under the control of the Ward Anderson group. In the 1960s a balcony was added to the room which added extra seats but ruined the natural acoustic. The film Doctor Zhivago played there for several years in the 1960s.

In the 1980s it closed as a cinema as the trend then was for smaller screens and because it had become a protected building it could not be easily converted into a twin cinema.

In 1994's Theatre Producer Michael Scott tried to bring back live theatre to it with a production of John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World, but the bad acousitc won out and live plays had to be abandoned. The Production ran 4 weeks and plans for other plays were cancelled.

More recently MCD the entertainment promotors leased the building and it now hosts a variety of events including theatre productions and concerts, all of which use extensive amplification.