GARY AYLESWORTH presents his 17th full-length play with The Ballad of Edgar Cayce/ American Trance. An award-winning playwright/ performer, Mr. Aylesworth has won five Drama-Logue awards in the space of six years. He was named Best Local Theater Talent in San Francisco Magazine in 1989. Some of his major works include: The Bohemian Grove, The Orphan King/ Warsaw Is Mine, Kerouac- i.e.!!, I Was a Go-Go Dancer For Gurdjieff, The Doom Folk, The Matador Club, Department of Fire, The Dick and the Devil, and Fear Strikes Out.

Before moving to San Francisco in the 1980s, he also worked with the infamous Broom Street Theater in Madison, Wisconsin. There he played Harry Houdini, Desi Arnaz, and Rhett Butler, among others, for the late experimental director Joel Gersmann.

For the past twelve years Mr. Aylesworth has worked as a Waldorf/ Steiner school teacher in the Bay Area. During this time he has written thirteen original plays for children (most recently a play based on the African fairy tale. Nkosnati and the Dragon). Aylesworth's future projects include a play about Rudolf Steiner and Waldorf Education.

PETER NEWTON has appeared in eleven Gary Aylesworth plays since 1980, both as a stage musician and actor.Raised in Madison, Wisconsin, Mr. Newton wrote for an underground newspaper and led a satirical rock band in his hometown in the 1970s. Subsequent to beginning his long association with Mr. Aylesworth, he cared for and managed the career of a disabled artist in San Francisco. In addition to creating music programs in Waldorf schools, Mr. Newton has directed children's plays, including Mr. Aylesworth's, in both English and Japanese.

He has been a Waldorf School teacher and music teacher since 1996, working both in America and Japan. Mr. Newton helped establish one of the first three Japanese Waldorf schools, as well as his own music and English kyoshitsu, on the northern island of Hokkaido. He has lectured and given music workshops throughout Japan. The Hummingbirds, his Japanese students' gospel choir, is stlll performing in Japan.