The Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — As she toured Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School and Camp in a yellow and pink dress, tossing her small stuffed bear, 8-year-old Daisy Thunstrom was left with one definite impression.

“Everything is so old,” she told her grandmother, local photographer Judy Jones.

Ninety-five years old, to be exact — a mark that locals, visitors, former students and others gathered to celebrate at Perry-Mansfield on Sunday. The celebration included tours, open rehearsals, a barbecue dinner and root beer floats, the favorite dessert of co-founder Portia Mansfield.

Jones brought her granddaughter to have a look around before Daisy returns next month for Perry-Mansfield’s day camp for children ages 8 to 10. It was a birthday present for Daisy, who is looking forward to a week of singing, dancing, acting and other activities. If the assertions of Perry-Mansfield’s former and current students are any indication, it will be a week to remember.

“It’s a wonderful place, and it keeps attracting people who come back from all over the world,” said Betty Toman, who taught dance at Perry-Mansfield in the 1960s and returns every summer from Arizona to volunteer.

“It’s very magical,” added Abbe Pensack, who, with Toman, welcomed people to the celebration.

All around the celebration it was business as usual at a place where students, if they get a day off, usually spend it catching up on laundry. The music of “Sweeney Todd” was the first thing to greet visitors walking up the drive. Further in, Angela Hammerli was moved by a dance rehearsal she watched with her family. It was Hammerli’s second return visit to Perry-Mansfield since she was a student there in the late 1960s.

“It brought great tears … because of the wonderful memories,” said Hammerli, a dance professor at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, La. “We would work hard, but we would grow hard.”

Current student Scott Mc­­Cabb, a 17-year-old dancer from Toronto, said the demanding schedule has taught him a lot about the passion required to succeed in the performing arts.

“It’s very character-building,” said McCabb, who was sitting out a rehearsal in the infirmary. “You develop a tougher skin and different ways to handle situations. … I think you really have to love what you’re doing to have the drive to get through our day.”

Throughout the afternoon, Rusty de Lucia led tours of the school and camp just north of Steamboat Springs on Routt County Road 36. De Lucia, a native New Yorker and former student of co-founder Charlotte Perry, said she knew theater would be her life and she would live at Perry-Mansfield after going there as a student in the 1950s. She considers Perry a second mother.

“Perry-Mansfield is my love, and my entire life,” she told her tour group. “Thank you for allowing me to share my love with you.”

As she walked around the grounds, de Lucia recalled studying algebra at the kitchen table of one of Perry-Mansfield’s oldest buildings and the columbines that used to fill the yard around it. She swears Perry and Mansfield, the late founders, continue to influence the camp she has loved for a lifetime — in ways more meaningful than the root beer floats.

“Their spirit is in every tree,” de Lucia said. “They are so here. That’s why this place still exists. … I hate to sound mystical, but it is the truth.”

To reach Brandon Gee, call 871-4210

or e-mail bgee@steamboatpilot.com