ELIZABETH ASKUE was born in Western Canada. She played Cobweb in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM at five years old - that was the beginning. She studied elocution and won the highest mark given by her London examiner. Ms. Askue graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and did radio and television work in New York. During World War II she acted with the Canadian troops, married an American doctor in the army and settled in Ulster County. She has performed with most of the Hudson valley theatre groups, including SUNY New Paltz and UUCC, most recently in ZERO HOUR with DnA Productions.

RUTH BERG, in her youth, pursued professional theatre for 15 years in NYC, then discovered the rewards of being "MRS" and a mother. In recent years, has worked with The Mohonk Mountain Stage and Readers' Theatre Co. locally, and appeared with the group in readings of KNOWING WOMEN, WAVERLY GALLERY, THE LARAMIE PROJECT, COLLECTED STORIES, LEFT and two of Gurney's plays ANCESTRAL VOICES and LABOR DAY as well as readings of short stories and poetry. Also for Readers' Theatre, compiled and directed two programs, FATHER AND SON: JOHN AND DAVID UPDIKE and SHORT STORIES BY CHEKHOV.

BEVERLY BRUMM (director) is a theatre teacher, director, and sometime playwright who moved to Chicago a year and a half ago after retiring from the faculty of the SUNY New-Paltz Theatre Department. She is pleased to return to her old Hudson Valley haunts for DANDELIONS, by Chicago playwright and TheaterSounds friend, Anne V. McGravie. As a director of over ninety productions, Beverly has worked in various venues, including theatres in Santa Fe, Northampton, Chicago, and Off-Broadway theatre in New York, as well as in and around the Hudson Valley. She also served as staging director of the annual “Village Voice” Obie Awards for eight years. Her most recent productions were THE LARAMIE PROJECT, A DOLL HOUSE, and GRAPES OF WRATH at New Paltz, and the Midwest premiere of EXPECTING ISABEL with Rivendell Theatre Ensemble in Chicago. Beverly holds an MFA degree from Yale Drama School and a Ph.D. from NYU.

NOAMI LEAF HALPERN toured the United States, Canada, Mexico and Europe with her solo program titled DANCES OF THE BIBLE AND THE NEAR EAST in which song and the spoken word were incorporated into the dance. Her script for REFRACTIONS, a video performance, was awarded a grant and produced by the Comets of Woodstock. She has been working with the Comets for many years. She has also appeared in a P.A.W. production. Her favorite roles are "Gertrude Stein" and "Russian Sonia" from the SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY.

ANNE McGRAVIE (playwright) is a produced, published, prize-winning playwright, a Scot who lives and works in Chicago. She has received two playwriting fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council and three IAC travel grants, one of which allowed her a first workshop reading of DANDELIONS in Melbourne, Australia, where I have a working relationship with LaMama Theatre. Residences include Ragdale and the Academy for the Arts, Chicago. Until recently, Anne taught playwriting in the Theatre Department of Loyola University, Chicago. Other published plays include BAGS (part of TheaterSounds’ NOT IN MY BACKYARD in 2002, and has played around the country); WRENS (recipient of three Jeff Awards); THE HIROSHIMA PROJECT (collab.w/Nick Patricca) recipient of a Jeff Award and a Late Night Award.

CHANDRA R. RUSSELL is a graduate of SUNY New Paltz. She has been seen in DANCING AT LUGHNASA as Chris Mundy, PICASSO AT THE LAPIN AGILE as Suzanne, SOME EXPLICIT POLARIODS as Nadia, and Thomasina in Tom Stoppard's ARCADIA. Currently she is continuing her acting career, while working as a licensed massage therapist in New York City.

KEN THOMPSON has appeared in the Hudson Valley area in Performing Arts of Woodstock's WENCESLAS SQUARE, ZOO STORY at UPAC's Back Alley Theatre, Shadowland's Social Security and THE MOUSETRAP; and Law & Order: SVU.

AMY VANE-GOLDBAUM is not eighty, yet, but she does vaguely remember life before the Second World War. She was a Theater, Radio/TV major at UCLA and apprenticed at the Laguna Beach Playhouse one summer. Ben Hecht sent her sandwiches. She worked as costume mistress and understudy for Theatre Group at UCLA under John Houseman. She went to New York City, of course, and became a puppeteer and starred in an early independent film called SECRET CINEMA directed by the late Paul Bartel. It was shown at the London and NYC film festivals in the late 60&Mac226;s and became a minor cult classic. She studied the Miesner Method with the late Jim Tuttle. She left the city for the country and got her Miesner Method straightened out by the very great Beverly Brumm in Ulster County, New York. She is now retired but for years produced and performed marionette plays as Herrick Marionettes and hand puppet plays as Vane & Co, for children, appearing in New York City frequently at the Lenny Suib Theatre up at the Asphalt Green and even once at the Fraunces Tavern.