About

We value creative intent, individual expression, experimentalism, irreverence, iconoclasm, playfulness, inquiry, humility, resourcefulness, and inclusivity. Roulette presents the excellent and unusual in equal measure, and we believe that creativity and art make the world a more interesting, connected, and worthwhile place.

Roulette is dedicated to supporting artists whose work falls outside of traditional genre and disciplinary constraints as well as those who have been historically underrepresented in experimental music, movement, and media. We are also committed to expanding the diversity of our staff, board, audience, and other partners, as we continually work to foster a greater sense of belonging at Roulette.

Since its inception, Roulette has paid artists guaranteed fees. This allows artists to budget, create, and execute work without the anxiety of wondering if they will make enough from ticket sales to cover their costs.

Roulette has an open call for proposals from artists and we present what artists are doing now, as opposed to what they’ve done in the past. Programming decisions are guided by artists’ work, not the commercial success, press coverage, or social media stats of a given artist or art work. 

We may not always know how an artist’s project will turn out when we agree to present them, but we believe in giving artists expansive creative freedom, as well as concrete financial and production support, to develop and realize their visions and ideas. 

Roulette’s leadership, staff, and board all include active, working artists–with two rotating seats on our Board of Directors reserved for members of our Artistic Advisory Council. The Artistic Advisory Council–composed of artists at varying career stages who are deeply familiar with the field, Roulette’s creative community, and the challenges of being a working artist–makes programming recommendations and serves as nominators and panelists for Roulette’s Awarded Artist Programs.

Roulette invests dedicated resources in helping early-career artists create and present new work, and we remain invested in their careers over time, so that today’s emerging artists become tomorrow’s mid-career and more established artists performing at Roulette and helping to define and expand the field at large. We hope to educate new audiences–and to constantly educate ourselves–on what is at the cutting edge of the avant-garde in our time.

Using material within Roulette’s archive of over 4,000 recordings dating back to 1978, we highlight the work of under-appreciated artists–particularly women, BIPOC, queer, and transgender artists. Through interviews, podcasts, and radio broadcasts, we contextualize these artists and historic recordings alongside new and emerging artists within an ongoing history of American experimentalism.

The more opportunities that artists have to present their work and that audiences have to experience it, the better. We are part of a larger creative ecosystem, and broad support and opportunities for the people working and existing within that ecosystem are good for all of us. Part of Roulette’s mission is to build audiences interested in experimental work, so we appreciate and applaud the efforts of other arts and cultural organizations as our partners in that endeavor. 

Beyond fundraising and ticket sales, one of the primary ways that Roulette financially supports its arts programming is by renting its venue to other organizations and producers. While the content of these events may differ significantly from Roulette’s programming, the income from these rentals supports Roulette’s mission and ensures our continued ability to present and pay experimental artists each year. In addition to discounted rates for non-profit clients, Roulette further subsidizes rental and presentation opportunities each year for a limited number of organizations whose mission and/or values directly align with Roulette’s.

Roulette was founded in 1978 during the rich, alternative space movement of the 1970’s by five graduates from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: trombonist/composer Jim Staley, composer/producer David Weinstein, intermedia artist Dan Senn, graphic artist Laurie Szujewska, and composer David Means. This movement changed the way art and music were experienced, with an emphasis on individual expression, experimentalism, irreverence, iconoclasm, playfulness, inquiry, and inclusivity. Spaces and programs were programmed and managed by artists; exhibitions and concerts took place outside of traditional venues; and Roulette emerged in a TriBeCa loft as one of New York City’s safe harbors for risk and discovery, where both young and established artists could explore new territory, invent, and cross-pollinate ideas. This is the very same spirit that has driven Roulette for over four decades; we’re still artist-run, and we’re more curious than ever.

In 2003, Roulette moved out of its TriBeCa loft to a 74-seat space on Greene Street in SoHo, Manhattan, where it operated for seven years. As artists’ ideas expanded, audiences grew, and rents in lower Manhattan began to rise, Roulette’s staff and Board began the search for a larger, more flexible and affordable performance space, ultimately finding our permanent home in Downtown Brooklyn in 2011. Now, Roulette is constantly improving our 400-seat, 1927 beaux-arts theater with over $5,000,000 in capital renovations and improvements and counting, rendering it one of the best-equipped and best-sounding in New York, while maintaining much of the theater’s historic charm. 

Roulette’s Tribeca-loft origins have evolved into a 12,000 square-foot multi-level facility in the heart of Downtown Brooklyn, and yet Roulette remains, at its heart, an artists’ space. We’ve awarded over $2,300,000 and counting to our Awarded Artists since our earliest days, and an even greater amount in guaranteed artist fees for every single performance we present. Since Roulette’s move to and renovation of our theater in Downtown Brooklyn, the organization's operating budget has increased fivefold from $500k in FY10 to $2.7M in FY24, with millions of additional dollars invested in the capital infrastructure of the building. With this increased capacity and robust staff, our presentation, production, and promotion of work has significantly increased in number, quality, comprehensiveness, and scale. Roulette now presents on average 120 shows per year, and produces an additional 150 community and rental events, welcoming up to 70,000 visitors to our theater annually and engaging an additional one million people each year through Roulette's Media and Archive initiatives.

We're constantly improving. Most recently, in 2024, we installed a new stage, upgraded our sound system with a new digital soundboard, and revamped our stage lights to an energy-efficient LED-based system with an extraordinary number of new lighting options. We’re constantly improving and evolving, because our artists, audiences, and mission deserve it.

Since its founding to present-day, Roulette has recognized the importance of documenting the work presented in our space and committed resources and expertise to ensure high-quality recordings of all performances. Consequently, the Roulette Archive is a perpetually growing 4,200+ artifact collection of one-of-a-kind DAT, PCM, VHS, reel-to-reel, and born-digital audio/video recordings and ephemera dating back to 1978, documenting singular achievements and landmarks in American musical performance, which we have spent years cataloging, digitizing, and now sharing with the world for free. The Roulette Archive is spearhead by Roulette co-founder and Director of Special Projects David Weinstein.

Programmatic content ranges from performances and interviews with young experimenters to MacArthur, Pulitzer, Doris Duke, and Jazz Master honorees, including special performances and world premieres from defining artists of our generation like Pauline Oliveros, John Zorn, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Henry Threadgill, John Cage, Shelley Hirsch, Christian Marclay, George Lewis, Maryanne Amacher, and Robert Ashley to name a limited few.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020 and Roulette was forced to shut its doors to the public, the organization sought new ways to pursue the primary goals of its mission: to support artists, present pioneering new work, and use its archive to build interest in historic work. The artists whose 35+ shows had to be  postponed between March 13, 2020 and June 30, 2020 were offered 50% of their fee upfront and the promise of a rescheduled performance date, and Roulette paid out all remaining and upcoming commission, residency, and fellowship fees for 2020 and 2021 in March 2020, when artists needed the funds most, totaling over $100,000. To ensure that artists remained visible and working, in September 2020, Roulette began live streaming performances from our stage using a 6-camera robotic system and making the livestreams available to the public free of charge.

Even post-pandemic, Roulette has continued to to offer multi-camera livestreams of nearly all the performances presented in our season, and we offer a distinct glimpse into our city’s rich history as a home to experimental artists through the Roulette Archive, with thousands of digitized recordings, artifacts, and ephemera dating back to 1978 hosted on our website for free. All of these efforts affirm Roulette’s longstanding commitment to supporting the creation of experimental work and making avant-garde performance available to an ever-expanding audience.

For 45 years, Roulette was run by President and Artistic Director Jim Staley, who stepped down on July 1, 2024 after being honored at Roulette's 45th Anniversary Gala. He is now Vice Chair of Roulette's Board, curates at Roulette for select series, and continues to perform with new and longtime collaborators.

Jim Staley has become an iconic staple in shaping and forever changing the experimental music scene of New York City. But what many don’t realize is that Roulette’s origins began well before its founding in his Tribeca loft. Staley enlisted in the U.S Army soon after graduating from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. During his service, he spent three years playing trombone in military bands where he was inspired by the collectivist, envelope-pushing spirit of the German avant-garde music scene, which he experienced first-hand while stationed in Berlin from 1971 to 1973. Slide Hampton had a particular influence on Staley, while he played in Hampton’s band abroad.

After his service period, he returned to Champaign-Urbana, where he was charged with caretaking for a family property, which he immediately turned into a space where artists and students could live, create, and experiment at little to no cost — affectionately coined “Staley Manor” — and where he met Roulette’s co-founders before moving to New York in in 1978 and establishing Roulette. In 1991, Staley founded Einstein Records.

Roulette not only survived, but modernized and thrived under Staley’s care. What began as a small experiment in his home has since evolved into an internationally recognized venue, presenter, and producer of experimental work by some of today’s most extraordinary minds.

Staley has been widely recognized for his deep support of experimental artists and their work.  He received the 2005 Susan E. Kennedy Memorial Award, the 2012 ASCAP award, and was named a 2018 Champion of New Music by the American Composers’ Forum.

Roulette is now co-led by Executive Director Jamie Burns and Artistic Director Matt Mehlan.

Roulette recently completed its most significant leadership transition to date, in which founding Director Jim Staley stepped back from leadership as of July 1, 2024. Staley co-founded Roulette in 1978 and adeptly led and grew the organization as both Executive and Artistic Director for 44 years. Roulette began laying the groundwork for his succession in 2022 with Phase 1 of a two-part succession plan. This entailed dividing Staley’s role into two separate positions: Executive Director (Jamie Burns, promoted from Managing Director) and Artistic Director (Jim Staley). Roulette subsequently brought on Matt Mehlan in the inaugural role of Associate Artistic Director; he became Roulette’s Artistic Director on July 1, 2024. Mehlan was a formative employee between the years of 2005 and 2014, and he played a key role in Roulette’s move to its new space in 2011. His return and reintegration is an exciting and inspiring moment for all.

As we reflect on our historic 45th season, capped with a beautiful honoring of Jim Staley and his life’s work at Roulette,we are also fully engaged with the future. Stepping into the role of Artistic Director this season, I am immensely humbled to be sharing the responsibility of building on Roulette’s legacy with our Executive Director Jamie Burns. We are ready, and I am profoundly grateful to be here. 

If we haven’t met yet, I hope we will. I have been a part of Roulette for nearly 20 years. First, working out of Jim’s loft, at our Greene Street location, and then working (an understated verb for what it was) alongside Jim, our staff, and board to move into our current space in Downtown Brooklyn. I was among those here with a vacuum and mop, attempting to make presentable what was an active construction zone to hold our initial events, when we hosted an ambitious (and beautifully chaotic) John Cage Musicircus, and when we baptized the new space with a performance by Shelley Hirsch and toast from then-Borough President Marty Markowitz. I was behind the mixing board at one of our first major concerts here—a sold out show by Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, and John Zorn—memorable for so many reasons,including Lou’s very high stage volume.

Roulette has been a  formative space for me as an artist and arts worker, as I know it has been for so many others. As Artistic Director, I’m eager to pay that forward, to continue to make Roulette the best place for artists in New York, to take risks on unexpected voices, and to center untold stories within the wide gamut of our presentations and Archive. — Matt