Roseville couple creating community space for local artists and coffee lovers. 

By Kinsey Gade 

On a Friday afternoon, Roseville is a relatively relaxed and quiet scene, with the average dog walker and typical flow of cars — unless you’re on the corner of Woodhill Drive and Lexington Avenue North at Showtime Studio and Coffee. There, bluesy music practically bursts out the front doors. 

The inside matches expectations, with chairs scattered around the space leading up to a stage. Musical instruments hang from the back walls of the stage, while beaming lights douse the musicians and singers below a big, bold Showtime sign. 

This is not a concert or performance, but a jam session — sung and played by amateurs, professionals and every level in between. Each song is unprepared and unique, with no expectations of perfection. 

At Showtime, musical jam sessions are almost a daily occurrence, ranging in genres such as blues, funk, Cajun, bluegrass, ukulele and more. Owners Matt and Megan Sieberg purchased the space in July 2022, initially as a venue for Matt Sieberg to teach music and host jam sessions. 

Since then, the space has grown to accommodate all types of artistic practices, including dance, yoga, qigong, storytelling, art and YWAM prayer and worship. Matt Sieberg said the space exists to support the community’s creative outlets. 

“A lot of creatives come in here, and they’re young, and we want to support them,” Sieberg said. “When you are creative and care about what you’re doing, you want to share it with the world. We want this to be a space where we can move those creatives to the next level.” 

Sieberg was raised under the influence of musician grandparents, including his grandmother, who was a church organist, and his grandfather, a polka clarinetist. He grew up taking piano lessons with his three siblings, but he was the only one who persisted with it. 

“They weren’t the most energized music lessons,” Sieberg said. “They weren’t inspiring. Usually it was a couple of senior ladies with a lot of cats. Nothing wrong with that and their style. It works for some people, but it didn’t work for my siblings, and it barely worked for me.” 

It wasn’t until high school that Sieberg started to take music seriously. He paid for his own lessons with a retired professor who inspired and motivated him to pursue a music degree at Bemidji State University. Later, he received a master’s in classical piano performance from the University of South Carolina on a full-ride scholarship. 

In July 2024, Matt and Megan Sieberg added a coffee shop to Showtime to accommodate more of the Roseville community. Megan Sieberg, a full-time nurse of 11 years, took on the role of manager at the coffee shop and took classes to learn the skills of a barista. 

Megan Sieberg said she stepped back from nursing this past fall to focus on the coffee shop as it’s grown. 

“It’s just fun being here,” she said. “People are excited that it’s a welcoming place to do different things, whether it’s participating as a musician, a listener, or if they are here during a quieter hour to do some work or read. We try to bring different things to the space so that way it brings different people together.” 

One avid attendee of the Open Blues Music Jam is Belle Liu, a senior at Concordia Academy High School. She attends every Friday, where she plays guitar, bass and drums. 

Liu’s passion for music started in her fourth-grade band class, and she has since been exploring the local music community at venues like Showtime and the Finnish Bistro. Liu said she encourages more youth to come to Showtime and jam out. 

“I feel like the thing that stops people from coming is that they think they are not good enough,” Liu said. “But there are no wrong notes, and everyone is chill.” 

In May, organizations in the Twin Cities area that support the arts faced the termination of their grants by the National Endowment for the Arts, according to Minnesota Public Radio News. Some organizations whose grants were terminated include Theater Mu in St. Paul, Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul, Lakes Area Music Festival in Brainerd, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Ragamala Dance Company, TU Dance Center, Theatre Novi Most, the Alive & Kickin senior ensemble and the Minnesota Latino Museum. 

These grant terminations followed the NEA’s compliance with executive orders issued in January by former President Donald Trump, which stated that grant recipients could not promote diversity, equity, inclusion and “gender ideology,” according to MPR News. A total of $882,500 in reimbursable grants was awarded to 35 arts organizations in Minnesota in January. 

Matt Sieberg said the future of Showtime depends on the community’s needs but said he plans to expand if the demand for public art spaces grows. 

“The next facility will have a concert hall theater and all kinds of other places that are more catered to what we want to do,” Sieberg said. “Will that ever happen? I don’t know. Will it need to happen? It might not. But I know that if I love the arts and I want more arts in my community, then it’s my responsibility to do something about it.” 

Top Photo: Musicians jam out during Friday’s Open Blues Music Jam. Photo by Kinsey Gade.