Salle Richelieu

The Salle Richelieu hosts corporate evenings for 20 to 860 guests built around a performance, with champagne or a cocktail in one of three private reception rooms for 20 to 150 people. It is the main theatre of the Comédie-Française, on place Colette in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, beside the Palais-Royal.

Seminars and company events

The format is a public-relations evening around a programmed show. Guests sit in the best seats of the house, and a privatised room is used before the performance, at the interval or after the curtain. The reception rooms of the Salle Richelieu can only be booked together with seats for a performance; they are not hired as standalone meeting rooms. The Comédie-Française also runs a corporate patronage programme, with priority booking for first nights and meetings with the actors of the troupe and with its general administrator. A galas brochure for each season sets out the formats, and the events are handled by the theatre's patronage and events department.

Rooms and capacities

Three rooms are offered. The Salle du Comité, where the theatre's governing committee meets, opens for 20 to 40 guests on an exceptional basis and holds Houdon's bust of Voltaire. The Salon Mounet-Sully, for 40 to 120, was restored in 2017 with corporate sponsorship and shown to the public in 2018; it has an octagonal parquet floor and a chandelier by the Cristallerie Saint-Louis. The Foyer Pierre Dux, restored in 2026, is the largest reception space of the Comédie-Française, for 120 to 150 guests, and looks over the fountain of place André-Malraux. Larger groups take their seats in the auditorium for the performance.

Catering

Champagne or a cocktail is served in the privatised room before, during or after the performance. The theatre does not publish menus on its events page.

History and setting

The theatre was designed by Victor Louis and opened in 1790 as part of the Palais-Royal complex. The Comédie-Française, the troupe founded in 1680 under Louis XIV, settled there in 1799 and has played there ever since. The company has two other halls: the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, founded in 1913 by Jacques Copeau and Louis Jouvet and attached on 9 April 1993, which takes events with or without a performance for up to 300 people, and the Studio-Théâtre, with 136 seats and a foyer opening onto the inverted pyramid of the Carrousel du Louvre.

Getting there

The entrance is on place Colette, 75001 Paris. The Palais Royal–Musée du Louvre metro station, on lines 1 and 7, is next to the theatre. The Louvre, the gardens of the Palais-Royal and the rue de Rivoli are a few minutes' walk away, which makes it easy to combine the evening with a dinner nearby.