David Allen Crossett

A resident of the borough of Peapack-Gladstone for more than 50 years, Allen served on the borough’s Environmental Commission and was also a member and later chairman of the town’s Library Advisory Board.

He was a member of the Peapack Reformed Church for many years, where he served as Elder and member of the senior choir.

Allen was born in Jamestown, N.Y., and grew up in Warren, Pa. He spent his high school years at The Lawrenceville School, where academically he made the top 99 percent of his class possible.

He completed his undergraduate studies at Upsala College in East Orange, where he majored in psychology and made the Dean’s List. He was elected class president and also served as vice president of Nu Chapter, Alpha Phi Omega, a national service fraternity.

Upon graduation, and after a brief exploration into the corporate world in Manhattan, Allen returned to academia, earning his master of arts degree in teaching (MAT) at Trenton State College, now the College of New Jersey, and later a Ph.D. in drama, now performance studies, at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

In 1967, Allen joined the faculty at Ridge High School in Basking Ridge, where for 30 years he was a member of the English Department. A master teacher, he completed specialized training at the Teaching Academy in a program developed by the New Jersey State Department of Education.

Allen was a founder of the Garden State Scholastic Press Association. As advisor of the award-winning “The Devil’s Advocate,” the Ridge High School student newspaper, he received the Golden Quill Award, the association’s top honor.

For several years, he also served as a judge for the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s annual national high school publications evaluations.

New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean recognized Allen for his “outstanding teaching,” and New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman recognized him for “setting a standard of excellence” and for creating a program at Ridge High School that encouraged student service to the community.

Allen pursued a lifelong passion in theater.

As a child, he wrote, directed and produced with his sister short plays that were presented to family and friends on a makeshift stage assembled in the basement of their home.

At Lawrenceville, he contributed as a composer to the annual spring musical, and at Upsala he was an active participant on stage and behind the scenes in the programs of Workshop 90, the student theater organization.

During his first year at Ridge High, he was asked to direct the annual spring musical, an assignment that established a winning collaboration with producer and musical director Norris Birnbaum. The two worked together for many years, not only on spring musicals but also producing and directing productions of the Ridge Summer Theater.

Each fall, Allen also directed a non-musical production. Although he railed against the arts being perceived as competitive, he directed a production that won first place at a statewide contest at the College of New Jersey.

In addition, for several years he brought together students and faculty to stage plays ranging from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” to “Spoon River Anthology.”

Allen also directed community theater, and his work was featured at Chester’s Black River Playhouse, the New Theater in Bernardsville, and the Foothill Play House in Middlesex.

At the same time, he and two former students, Anne Lambertson and Reid Conrad, together created Trilogy Repertory, a community theater in Basking Ridge. He later founded the Peapack Players, a community theater that staged “Our Town” and other plays at the Peapack Reformed Church.

Allen’s interest in theater was also reflected in his writing pursuits.

For about 40 years, he covered both community and professional theater in central New Jersey as a

feature writer and drama critic for the weekly newspapers of the Recorder Publishing Company, former publishers of this newspaper. He was twice honored for writing excellence by the New Jersey Chapter of Professional Journalists.

In addition to writing about theater, Allen wrote for the theater. “Ten Thousand Days,” a one-act play staged by Trilogy Repertory, was selected by the New Jersey Play Festival to represent the Garden State in regional competition in Washington, D.C.

At an early age, Allen developed an abiding interest in music.

For several years, as a boy soprano he was a member of the Warren, Pa., Boys Choir, under the direction of Byron Swanson.

At Lawrenceville, he sang with the school’s glee club, chapel choir and the Lawrentians, an a cappella double quartet. At Upsala College, he performed with the school’s touring choir. He and his beloved wife of 58 years, Dorothy (Sandell) Crossett, loved to travel, an interest that started with their honeymoon to Scandanavia. Having twice driven coast to coast, Allen and

Dottie visited at one time or another all 50 states of the United States.

Their most exotic trip was a journey by catamaran up the Sepik River of Papua New Guinea, and their most recent was a week-long cruise along coastal Iceland. Allen’s most favorite destination was Bar Harbor, Maine.

Allen is survived by his wife, Dorothy; his daughter Laura Ellen Crossett of Costa Mesa, Calif.; his daughter Jennifer Ann Crossett of Denver, Colo.; and his two grandsons, Finn Allen Murry and William Joseph Murry of Denver.

He is also survived by his sister, novelist Susan Crossett Dilks of Cassadaga, N.Y.

A service celebrating Allen’s life took place at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 23, at the Peapack Reformed Church, 224 Main St., Gladstone.

In lieu of flowers, Allen’s family requests donations to Trilogy Repertory, P.O. Box 199, Basking Ridge, N.J., 07920.