Edward Gerhard Kuster (August 15, 1878 – September 1961) was a musician and attorney from Los Angeles for twenty-one years before coming to Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, in 1921.

He was the son of Charles Edward Kuster (1842–1915), a German-born Los Angeles, California, physician, and Emma Eshman (died 1905).

[2] The family moved to Los Angeles in July 1886, where Kuster attended public schools for three years.

[1] He returned to Los Angeles and finished high school in 1896, studying the cello and becoming an avid theatre buff.

[9] Kuster passed the California Bar Examination on March 13, 1902, joined the law office of Graves, O'Helveny & Shankland and worked there until 1903.

[11] Meanwhile, he began acting in small parts at Los Angele's Majestic Theater in his spare time.

He also played cello in the Los Angeles Symphony and became a stage manager and learned lighting at the Denishawn school.

In 1921, he composed and orchestrated the music for the Irish play, The Countess Cathleen, directed by Herbert Heron, at Forest Theater.

Kuster built the Carmel Weavers Studio in front of the theatre, for his wife Ruth in September 1922 (now Cottage of Sweets).

[12][21] Maurice Browne and wife Ellen Van Volkenburg directed its the theatre's acting school.

[22] In 1935, Kuster renegotiated his lease with the movie tenants to perform a stage play one weekend each month.

On May 17, 1935, at the Golden Bough, Kuster opened his adaptation of the Austrian comedy By Candlelight, by Siegfried Geyer [de] and Karl Farkas.

He also restarted the Carmel Arts and Crafts Theatre, renaming it the Golden Bough Playhouse and again put on plays, foreign films, and movies.

[23] On May 18, 1956, Kuster ended his thirty-five years of acting and directing by appearing as Grandpere in the play The Happy Time.