The Roulette Theater New York City Track Share. Brooklyn, NY 11217. Map Pre-paid Parking. MORE INFO ABOUT The Roulette Theater Claim this venue profile. Anti-Racism Resources. Roulette denounces racism, white supremacy and complacency, and police brutality. We commit to serve, elevate, and amplify Black voices, work, and stories not only as a fundamental aspect of our ongoing mission but in this critical moment and beyond.

• A revitalized 1928 theater in the heart of Downtown Brooklyn, Roulette features a dramatic proscenium and charming balcony, seating for up to 400 (550 standing), unsurpassed acoustics and sight lines, and superb production equipment.
• Anti-Racism Resources. Roulette denounces racism, white supremacy and complacency, and police brutality. We commit to serve, elevate, and amplify Black voices, work, and stories not only as a fundamental aspect of our ongoing mission but in this critical moment and beyond.
• Roulette is an incredible venue, hosting amazing events throughout the year. Anytickets has a terrific and, most importantly, affordable inventory of seats to those icon 866-516-0200.

Mission, History, Board, Staff List, Contact

Roulette Brooklyn Calendar

Mission

Roulette’s mission is to support artists creating new and adventurous art in all disciplines by providing them with a venue and resources to realize their creative visions and to build an audience interested in the evolution of experimental art.

History

Roulette Intermedium was founded in 1978 at the height of the Downtown Experimental Arts revolution by four graduates from the University of Illinois (Urbana), trombonist/composer Jim Staley, composer/producer David Weinstein, intermedia artist Dan Senn, and graphic artist Laurie Szujewska. The informal concerts they presented in a small loft space in TriBeCa in Manhattan soon attracted an audience and critical attention. The first donation – an unsolicited and unexpected check for $1,000 – arrived in the mail from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, suggested by noted composer, John Cage. By the mid-1980s, Roulette had emerged as “a landmark for New York’s downtown new music composers.”

Over the next three decades, Roulette attracted a steadily growing audience and worldwide reputation as a center for musical innovation. Seminal pioneering figures who have presented their work at Roulette, oftentimes early in their careers, include Maryanne Amacher, Robert Ashley, Anthony Braxton, Simone Forti, Bill Frisell, Philip Glass, Yusef Lateef, Christian Marclay, Meredith Monk, Ikue Mori, Pauline Oliveros, Zeena Parkins, Arthur Russell, Kaija Saariaho, Wadada Leo Smith, Henry Threadgill, and John Zorn. Roulette continues to make a mark as a venue where scores of promising avant-garde artists make their first professional statements. Representatives of the latest generation of composing artists who have recently developed and presented works at Roulette include Aaron Burnette, Maria Chavez, Phyllis Chen, Jennifer Choi, Mario Diaz de Leon, Mary Halvorson, Darius Jones, Mary Kouyoumdjian, Alfredo Marin, Tristan Perich, Matana Roberts, Tyshawn Sorey, Ben Stapp, C. Spencer Yeh and many more.

As audiences grew and rents in lower Manhattan began to rise, the staff and Board members began the search for a larger, more flexible and affordable home. On September 15th, 2011, Roulette opened a new chapter in its history when it moved into the 1928 Memorial Hall in the Downtown Brooklyn Cultural District. The new 400-seat theater allows us to expand our presentations along with our services to artists and our community; each season, we now present more than 100 music, dance, and intermedia performances. Our annual attendance now tops 60,000.

In recent years, Roulette has effected a major transition, expanding programs, audiences and community, but it is still an artist-driven space, valued for its payment of professional guaranteed fees, its insistence on the best presentation conditions, and the provision of other critical artists’ services. Our GENERATE Program, supported for more than 30 years by the Jerome Foundation and other private and public support, awards emerging and established composers commissions and/or monetary stipends along with extensive rehearsal time in Roulette’s theater, access to audio and lighting equipment and technical staff to help them with their experiments, and full production support for performances of the work created during the residency.

Our programming has expanded globally through Roulette’s online and television broadcast programs where audiences all over the world can explore the treasures of our archives. Roulette TV features senior figures of the avant-garde movement and their young successors.

Roulette is one of the few surviving organizations to maintain its identity as an Artists’ Space and its commitment to bring the experimental performing arts to a wider public; its history of performances (preserved in the Roulette Archive—a comprehensive collection of more than 3,000 concert listings with historic audio, video, limited-edition concert posters, publications, press, and ephemera), leaves a detailed and distinguished record of four decades of artistic development, experimentation, and achievement.

Board of Directors

James S. Staley, President
Ned Rothenberg, Chairman
Paul Gertner, Secretary
Joseph Walker, Treasurer

Sean Buffington
Jennifer Choi
Mario Diaz de Leon
Anne Hemenway
Mimi Johnson
Gordon Knox
George Lewis
John Madsen
Gayle Morgan
William Parker
Catherine Pavlov
Frances Richard
Frederick Sherman, Esq.
David Weinstein
Brooks Williams
Alvin Lucier, Emeritus

Artistic Advisory Council

David Behrman
M.V. Carbon
Sylvie Courvousier
Peter Evans
Shelley Hirsch
Jason Hwang
Val Jeanty
Darius Jones
John King
Oliver Lake
James Brandon Lewis
Miya Masaoka
Tomeka Reid
Jen Shyu
Nate Wooley

Contact

Roulette’s administrative offices are open Monday to Friday 10am-6pm.

Mailing Address
Roulette
30 Third Avenue, Suite 208
Brooklyn, NY 11217

Physical Address
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue
(Corner of Third Avenue)
Brooklyn, NY 11217

Main Telephone: (917) 267-0363
Fax: (917) 463-1051

Box Office, General Information & Artist Submissions
roulette@roulette.org
(917) 267-0368
Please note that Roulette’s Box Office opens one hour to performances.

Space Rental & Special Events
Stéphanie Palmer, Director of Special Events + Community Partnerships
events@roulette.org
(917) 267-0370 x303

Press & Marketing
Caitlin Gleason, Director of Communications
Rachel Lyngholm, Graphic Designer + Communications Assistant
press@roulette.org
(917) 338-6378 x304

Development & Membership
Emily Bookwalter, Director of Development
development@roulette.org
(917) 267-2440 x308

Employment Opportunities
Visit our Opportunities page for open positions.

Roulette Theater Brooklyn Ny 11235

Policies

Read Roulette’s Code of Conduct here. Read Roulette’s Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment Policy here.

In 1978 three young composers, Jim Staley, David Weinstein and Dan Senn, founded Roulette Intermedium and began to present concerts of music, dance and intermedia art in a Tribeca loft. Weinstein had written a piece, Café Roulette, an homage to Dada and to chance operations in music. Perhaps the three artists had some premonition that an organization dedicated to experimental art was a gamble, that the odds of its survival were long. But they invoked the hazards of chance the element of risk, and thirty-four years later, their bet is still paying off.

These informal concerts soon attracted an audience, critical attention, and the portentous title: the Concert Series of New and Adventurous Music which settled in at about 70 concerts per year. The first, magical, donation — an unsolicited and unexpected $1000 — arrived in the mail from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts (created with funds contributed by John Cage, Jasper Johns, and Carolyn Brown). A few days later, Cage showed up at a concert (Cage and Merce Cunningham came pretty regularly. They would arrive early and Cage would sit in the front row and play chess with a protégé, while Merce would linger in the back). “Thank you!” we said. Cage stretched into his legendary grin and said, “Were you surprised? “ Surprised! We thought we had hit the lottery.

For the next three decades, Roulette Intermedium presented experimental music, dance and intermedia in small loft spaces in lower Manhattan, and gradually acquired an international reputation as an important center for experimental art. Thousands of artists have presented their work here including world-renowned figures such as Maryanne Amacher, Robert Ashley, John Cage, Anthony Braxton, Bill Frisell, Philip Glass, Oliver Lake, Leroy Jenkins, Christian Marclay, Meredith Monk, Ikue More, Pauline Oliveros, Zeena Parkins, Kaija Saariaho, Henry Threadgill and John Zorn. But every season scores of young avant-garde artists make their first professional statements at Roulette.

In November 2011, Roulette moved from a 74-seat loft to a 400-seat theater with superb acoustics, and gloriously equipped thanks to the generosity of our funders – individuals, foundations, corporations, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Marty Markowitz, the Brooklyn Borough President, Steve Levin, our Council Member, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Roulette Theater Brooklyn Ny 11230

The new theater allowed us to expand our presentations and our services to artists and our community. Now each season we present over 150 music, dance and Intermedia performances, host fifty arts and community organizations such as the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and welcome an audience of over 50,000.

Roulette has built a support structure for these artists. They’re paid professional fees; they get commissions – especially the emerging ones, who have received over $120,000 in Jerome commissions and Van Lier Fellowships, and who are now also eligible for paid Jerome residencies in our theater.

Roulette Theater Brooklyn Ny Showtimes

Our programming has expanded globally through Roulette’s Internet programs where audiences all over the world can explore the treasures of our Archive.Roulette TV programs are now available on Brooklyn Cable TV as well as Manhattan Cable. Our Children’s Concert Series encourages curiosity, listening and looking attentively and practical experiment in monthly events and workshops.

Our ongoing purpose has been to support artists through presenting a substantial and diverse program of concerts, commissioning new work, paying artists a deserving fee, and finding them an audience interested in learning about developments in experimental art.

Roulette Theater Brooklyn

Over the last three decades, as we pursue our mission, we have emphasized quality. The work we present is distinguished for its intelligence, for the virtuosity of the performers, and for the bravery of its investigation. And now we have provided an outstanding performance environment for our artists and audiences.

Roulette Theater Brooklyn Ny Tickets

In an astonishingly short time Roulette has become an epicenter for our Brooklyn neighborhood, and for the arts organizations of New York City. It occupies a unique position in New York City’s cultural landscape as one of the most creative and prolific centers for experimental art in the United States.