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• n  someone habitually a spectator at the openings of theatrical productions

• Ekins' record stood unchallenged till last month, when a wealthy widow named Clara Adams, famed in airline circles as an inveterate first-nighter, saw her chance.
• Said one first-nighter solemnly: "It's something you have to digest.
• Many a first-nighter wondered a little at Playwright Anderson's hosannas to the virtues of muddling through, for Anderson had pictured his muddlers as lily-livered, rum-smuggling .