She studied professionally with Adolph Bolm in Chicago, Nicolas Legat, Tamara Karsavina and Phyllis Bedells in London, and Mathilde Kschessinskaya, Olga Preobrajenskaya and Vera Trefilova in Paris McRae taught at Francis Parker School, Chicago Teachers College, the Adolph Bolm School of the Dance, the Pavley and Oukrainsky Ballet School in Chicago, and the Perry-Mansfield Camp in Colorado.
At the same time she choreographed for the "Enchanted Island" Children's Theatre at the Century of Progress Exposition, 1933/34, Chicago Park District opera groups, the Chicago Concert and Opera Guild, The Society of Polish Artists, Germania Theatre, Sidney J.
After retirement in 1964, she supervised the original Joffrey Ballet Company's West Coast Apprentice Program.
[8] In 1965, and became director of the Summer Scholarship Training Program jointly sponsored by Joffrey Ballet and the Pacific Northwest Ballet Association at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington from 1966 to 1970 and at Berkeley from 1971.
[8][9] A near-fatal heart attack in April 1974 brought an abrupt end to McRae's life as a master teacher.