It resides in a building erected a year earlier in the interwar Poland as headquarters for the Professional Union of PKP Railway Workers with offices upstairs.

[1] The Ateneum Theatre began as an experimental stage with strong socio-political profile, under an Avant-garde-inspired name The Outpost of Spoken Word (Placówka Żywego Słowa).

[3] The groundbreaking performances included The Street Scene by Elmer Rice (1930), Danton's Death by Georg Büchner (1931), Senat Szaleńców by Holocaust victim Janusz Korczak (1931), the Tsar Lénine by François Porché (1932), and in the vein of political Zeittheater of the time, The Captain of Köpenick by Carl Zuckmayer (1932) and Roar China!

The grand reopening took place on 22 July 1951, with the première of Intervention by Lev Slavin in the spirit of socialist-realist doctrine imposed by the Communist Party in Stalinist Poland.

Almost all prominent Polish actors performed at Ateneum throughout its existence including Jadwiga Andrzejewska, prof. Aleksander Bardini, Henryk Bista, Zbigniew Cybulski, Edward Dziewoński, Jerzy Duszyński, Tadeusz Fijewski, Adam Hanuszkiewicz, Gustaw Holoubek, Emil Karewicz, Bogumił Kobiela, Jan Kociniak, Agnieszka Osiecka, Aleksandra Śląska, and Roman Wilhelmi among others.