F&M Stories

It's so still and silent, you can hear a pin drop.

F&M's Green Room Theatre is dark, ready for its next production. Only the faint red light of the exit signs illuminates the backs of the seats. It's almost as if time is frozen.

But listen carefully and you might hear an echo from the past. Maybe the voices of big-screen actors Roy Scheider '55 or Treat Williams '73 on stage during their student days, or the instruction of legendary professors Ed Brubaker '49, Hugh Evans and Gordon Wickstrom.

History seeps from every corner of F&M's beloved Green Room, from its Art Deco lobby to the control booth high above the auditorium's 205 seats. The theater opened in 1937 in the lower level of the Keiper Liberal Arts Building, a stately Georgian colonial brick structure completed the same year. It was named for the Green Room drama club, which was founded in 1899. The current iteration of the club continues to produce a variety of theatrical performances, including dramas, musicals, and everything in between.

The Green Room was renovated in 1977, 2007 and again this past summer. The most recent renovations were funded in part by playwright and director James Lapine '71, a 12-time Tony Award nominee and three-time winner. The work included renovated seats, new carpeting and fresh paint.