First Nighters Club
The First Nighters Club is made up of persons, organizations and businesses who love the theatre and who want the student artists of the Forest Roberts Theatre program to receive first-class professional training on stage, backstage and in the classroom.
Our purpose is to support the Forest Roberts Theatre program at Northern Michigan University, ensuring that it continues to provide a quality and progressive education in theatre arts, and to provide the community with innovative and high-quality university theatre productions. Our goal is to ensure and maintain the artistic quality of FRT productions for NMU, Marquette and the surrounding region.
The First Nighters Club also provides educational programs for U.P. theatre goers and supports innovative and challenging theatre productions. Your contribution to the First Nighters Club helps us promote and support a wide range of activities in which the Forest Roberts Theatre is engaged, thus helping to enrich the cultural life of our community.
Benefits to theatre students
The First Nighters Club supports theatre students in many ways, including:
- talent scholarships
- tuition and fees for graduate artistic interns
- support for actors, designers and critics to attend and participate in the regional Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival
- audition fees for state, regional and national auditions
- annual outstanding achievement awards
- academic achievement awards
- New York and Stratford Field Studies scholarships
Special events
The First Nighters Club hosts several special events throughout the year, including:
- sneak preview luncheons
- cabaret every March
- backstage tours
- post-production discussions
- receptions for playwriting award winners and guest artists
- annual fund-raising musical cabaret
- senior performance reception
Benefits to the theatre
The First Nighters Club has financed several theatre improvements:
- wireless microphones
- lighting instruments
- wireless intercom/headset system
- lighting and sound equipment for the Black Box Theatre
First Nighters Club levels of membership and benefits
All levels will receive program acknowledgement throughout the season, as well as in the club newsletter.
- Booster: $25 - $74 - no ticket benefits
- Friend: $75 - $149 - 1-2 reserved season tickets
- Patron: $150 - $299 - 1-4 reserved season tickets
- Sponsor: $300 - $499 - 1-6 reserved season tickets
- Angel: $500 - $999 - 1-8 reserved season tickets
- Producer's Circle: $1,000 or more - 1-10 reserved season tickets
First Nighters Club advisory board officers for the 2007-2008 season
President – Chet DeFonso
Vice President – Jessica “Red” Bays
Secretary – Keli Truckey
Treasurer – James A. Panowski
Join the First Nighters Club
