Abigail Rosen McGrath has been a director, producer, playwright, and casting director.  She, with her husband Tony McGrath, in 1962 created Off Center Theatre introducing new playwrights with the purpose of engaging audiences in thoughtful topics.  Among the playwrights were Trevor Griffen, Barry Keefe, Neall Bell, Norman Wexler, and Tom Labar.  Off Center Theatre had a performance space for an adult subscription audience as well an educational street touring company for young audiences informing them of political and moral issues and encouraging open debate and response. This company toured the streets of New York and its boroughs in a truck that would transform into an instant stage.  Many actors in New York got their first acting jobs with the company.  Some of the shows were based on classic fairy tales such as BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, FRANKENSTEIN, CINDERELLA (with F. Murray Abraham), LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD, HANSEL AND GRETEL,  JACK AND THE BEANSTALK (with John Leguizamo), RUMPLESTILTSKIN, THREE LITTLE PIGS (with S. Epatha Merkerson), SINBAD THE SAILOR, THE PIED PIPER OF HAMLYN.  Other plays reflected religious topics such as THE HANUKKAH STORY, THE NATIVITY STORY, NOAH AND THE ARK, JUDAH MACCABEE, or cultural/political topics like BENJAMIN BANNEKER, CRISPUS ATTUCKS, FREDERICK DOUGLASS, BITING THE APPLE (with F Murray Abraham), HOPE FOR LIFE, LITTLE RED SPARKILL, YENTA UNPLUGGED, and HORTENSE SAID: I DON’T GIVE A DAMN (with Janet Reed).  As an actor before the Off Center Theatre, she performed Off-Broadway in MISS FITTS (1957), KING EBU (1960),THE LIVING PREMISE (1963), PENELOPE (1963), and BECLCH (1968).  Her summers were often spent on Martha’s Vineyard, acting in NO EXIT, TWELFTH NIGHT, THE CAVE DWELLERS, HAMLET, THE TENTH MAN, and MARTY.  In 1962 she performed in a “Happening” in Claus Oldenberg’s store in New York.  McGrath directed The View From the Bridge (1960), and Insect Play (1962) at The Red Hook Community Center, co-directed A LITTLE SOMETHING BEFORE YOU GO at The Actors’ Studio Playwrights Unit, and in Paris directed two Happenings: Mannequin, for Jean Jacques Lebel, and one for the Robert Codier Gallery.  On Broadway McGrath performed in The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window (1964), and Where’s Daddy(1966).  In 1972 she was in the movie Voulez-Vous Coucher Avec God?, and Andy Warhol’s Tub Girls (1967).  In the early 60s McGrath worked as Laurence Kornfeld’s assistant at The Judson Poets’  Theatre and before that as a bouncer at Max’s Kansas City and coat checker for Your Father’s Moustache and The Village Vanguard, all renowned restaurant/meeting places for the top cultural artists of the period.  Currently McGrath is an Executive Producer and casting director for her son Benson McGrath’s movies.  In 2021 she wrote Hidden Heroes, plays for an animated series aimed at teenagers, for Federator Studios.  She has also been an associate producer and/or casting director for movies and television series such as: The Gig, Hit the Dutchman, Better Than Ever, and Our Ruling Class (by Jason Rosen).

Abigail Rosen McGrath grew up just at the end of the Harlem Renaissance in a family deeply involved in its creation.  Her mother was the famous poet Helene Johnson and her aunt the writer Dorothy West.  Her father was a stevedore and later a Macy’s elevator operator, all top jobs for Black men at that time.  His real love was opera and he always wanted to be an opera director.  Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes and many others were regular ‘members’ of the family talking about literature in her home in such a casual way McGrath never knew them as ‘celebrities’.  The atmosphere in the home in Brooklyn was artistic and intellectual and every Sunday they would come into the city to go to the Apollo and other events in Harlem.  McGrath’s aunts were homeschooled classically by a great-aunt (one of four) and they thought they were all sisters.  When they went to Boston Latin School they discovered they had different names.  Of these aunts, her mother Helene was the only one to have a child.  The family read to each other at night, wrote, played charades which stopped when television entered the home.  This extraordinary literary upbringing gave McGrath the skills to do all the work she has done since.  Her creation of Renaissance House, an artists’ retreat in Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard, passes on the gifts she has acquired.