In the location's words:

The Roto Theater was founded in January 1998 by Barbara Kleyboldt and Rüdiger Trappmann.

On October 14, 1998, the Roto Theater appeared in public for the first time with the musical revue "Love's shadow" with Barbara Kleyboldt - acting and singing and accordionist Sylke Meissner with a premiere at the Zeche Zollern II/IV.
In May 2000, the first production of the Roto Theater ensemble followed with the play Kasimir and Karoline by Ödon von Horvath, also at the Zeche Zollern II/IV.

The Roto Theater ensemble consists of former students of the Là Bouche theater school.

We have three main focuses in our repertoire:

• Poet portraits
  with Barbara Kleyboldt and Rüdiger Trappmann
• Poet portraits
  with Barbara Kleyboldt, Rüdiger Trappmann and Roger Hantschel, saxophone
• musical revues
  with Barbara Kleyboldt - vocals and Niclas Floer on the grand piano

We are now very successful with our performances. We put on 150 performances a year at the Roto Theater. We are now the literary theater in Dortmund. Our audiences praise the high quality of our productions and the very special atmosphere of the theater.

We have performed and continue to perform on tour in several cities in NRW. For example, we have performed our poetry programs in four public libraries in Düsseldorf, in Schloss Morsbroich in Leverkusen, in various district libraries in Dortmund and in the boat lift in Henrichenburg, to name just a few guest venues.

We now receive center funding and project grants from the city of Dortmund.