After he followed her suggestion and the talks attracted more people than could fit in Clurman's apartment, Crawford arranged for the use of a showroom at the Steinway Piano Company.

[3] Crawford had a major role in selecting the early plays produced by The Group, beginning with their first one, The House of Connelly by North Carolina playwright Paul Green, whom she later introduced to composer Kurt Weill.

She encouraged their subsequent collaboration, Weill's first American project, the musical Johnny Johnson, was the last production she worked on before resigning from The Group Theatre in 1937 to become an independent producer.

[4] Crawford was influential in the early careers of such actors as Helen Hayes, Bojangles Robinson, Mary Martin, Ethel Barrymore, Ingrid Bergman, Tallulah Bankhead, and Paul Robeson, among many others.

In 1947, together with former Group Theatre members Elia Kazan and Robert Lewis, she founded the Actors Studio, which trained Marlon Brando, James Dean, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Rip Torn, Geraldine Page, Marilyn Monroe, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Steve McQueen, Martin Landau, Shelley Winters, Jane Fonda, Ellen Burstyn, Harvey Keitel, Jack Nicholson, John Astin, and many more.