Citations

As people’s lives seem to become both busier and less connected to others, we treasure our time here more and more. We love this beautiful place, and we know that most of what we value the most wouldn’t happen without the work of dedicated volunteers. These are the people, seen or unseen, who show up year after year to ensure that we have operettas, musicals, Art Fairs, pickleball, Bible study, rafts in the water, and a functioning board of trustees and committee chairs who make things work for us. Each year the Citation Committee is privileged to recognize individuals from among the many – to share with you some of the work that is so often unseen. Our recipient of the 2025 Citation for Long and Valued Service to the Assembly is a true Renaissance person whose contributions to the Assembly encompass a dizzying range of skills. BARBARA PERRY.

 

Barbara Perry It’s always interesting to learn how people became connected to the Assembly in the first place. In Barb’s case we can thank the Marble family. Barb’s grandmother, Flora Hardie Burditt, was an opera singer in New York. She sang with, and became lifelong friends with, Manton Marble. Flora’s son George and Manton’s son Ken, in their turn, became lifelong friends, so when the Burditts bought their cottage at the Assembly Alan Marble took Barb and her sister under his wing, introduced them to all his friends and all the fun activities for youth at the time – there were teen dances, beach parties, Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. They had Bible study at the cottage where Ken Cox played the guitar.

 

Like many others she was able to extend her time here by working at the Crystal View, and she volunteered with the Sunday School. Those things left her with plenty of time to enjoy the beach and to play tennis – an activity that ended when she ruptured an Achilles tendon while playing.

 

Barb’s volunteer involvement, which has been widely distributed, falls into two major categories: the aspects that help the Assembly function in a way that is effective, interesting, and enjoyable for all; and the aspects that everyone remembers. To have summers to remember, we can’t have one without the other.

 

She was on the Education Fund Committee which has provided scholarship help for students from the CSA and from the local high schools. Several years ago, working with Jane Taylor and Liz Gottlieb, she helped start the Arts Committee which she currently chairs. It brings together under one umbrella such CSA favorites as Stunt Night, Art Workshops, and the Authors and Artisans Fair along with newer activities such as The Big Read and the Adult Teen Dance. In the 1990s Barb became a member of the Board of Trustees and again 25 years later when she became president of the Board in 2017. Her mantra during those years, which describes her approach to volunteering, was “We’re all in this together.”

 

But it is Barb’s work with the operettas, spanning more than 3 decades, that is recalled by so many. It all started in 1968 through what she says must have been divine intervention. Tede Holt told Barb’s mom that she needed someone to step in and rehearse with the kids because Eileen Rauschert would miss the first week of rehearsals. So, she stepped in and helped out – and continued helping out for the next 30+ years! She didn’t just help out with rehearsals. When it became difficult to find new operettas that would be right for our very large casts, Barb started by writing new songs for existing operettas (she says the one she’s most proud of is “It’s Pink Out,” which she wrote with Liz Gottlieb and Sasha Neiman). Then she got involved in creating entirely new shows – some of you may well remember these which she either co-wrote or wrote entirely herself: Operetta Odyssey, Operetta Odyssey II, The Legend of the Hockmuth Monster, The Bluebird of Happiness, and Cray Cray Day at the CSA.

 

Once in the operetta world she was drawn to the adult shows. She loved being funny with Steve Elrick in “Flower Drum Song,” and with Liz Gottlieb in “Fiddler on the Roof.” Other silly moments included Jim Buzzell carrying her offstage in a wheelbarrow and the time she sang a solo (with much coaching from Marilyn) wearing combat boots and a housecoat in “Bye Bye Birdie.”

 

Barb says that the boundary between heaven and earth is especially thin here at the Assembly and she is deeply grateful for the place and the people of the Congregational Summer Assembly.

 

We, in turn, are deeply grateful to you - BARBARA PERRY