The creator of The Mitzvah Project, Roger Grunwald is the child of a Auschwitz survivor and, for five decades, has been a professional performing artist. In 2013 he was honored with grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts for the development of The Mitzvah – the play that is centerpiece of The Mitzvah Project.
During his career, Roger has appeared in over 80 stage productions in the United States and Europe and his voice and face have been heard on — and seen in — commercials, industrials, video games, feature films, primetime and daytime TV, as well as documentaries for HBO, Court Television Network and the Discovery Channel.
Over the last several years, Roger has portrayed Otto Frank in the stage drama Anne & Emmett, which imagines a conversation between Anne Frank and Emmett Till. Penned by Janet Langhart Cohen, Anne & Emmett has been performed twice at the National Black Theater Festival in Winston-Salem, NC; at the De La Mar theatre in Amsterdam; at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture; at the New York City Police Academy and the United States Supreme Court at the invitation of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
In recent years, Roger was part of three productions at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater: co-starred in the premiere episode of the HBO primetime series, VINYL, under the direction of Martin Scorsese and was one of two leads in the short film, "One Good Pitch" that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. In 1983 he co-founded New York's Castillo Theatre where he starred in over 45 productions.
Roger is a San Francisco native, a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and is a founding ensemble member of CalShakes.
Annie McGreevey, The Mitzvah's co-creator and director, is an actor, singer, writer, director, and teacher, with a career spanning over 40 years. She has been featured on Broadway and in London’s West End in some of the theater’s biggest hits including Sweet Charity, Company, Sweeney Todd, and Annie. Other American venues include: Lincoln Center, City Center, West Side ArtsTheater, The American Place Theater, The Kennedy Center, Arena Stage,The Long Wharf Theater, St Louis Muny Opera, Long Beach Civic light Opera, Dallas Opera House and The Library of Congress. Among the people Annie has worked with over the years are Peter Coe, Alan J. Lerner, Burton Lane, Bob Fosse, Cy Coleman, Harold Prince, Michael Bennett, Stephen Sondheim, Stephen Swartz, Grover Dale, Jonathan Lynn, Joshua Logan, Garry Hynes , and Wynn Handman.
Her career has included extensive work as a solo artist, play-ing characters as diverse as the murdered go-go dancer, Angel Eyes; in Joyce Carol Oats’ I Stand Before You Naked; Rona Maria Prescott, a trauma nurse serving in Vietnam, in Voices of War, commissioned by the Library of Congress and dramatized and directed by Wynn Handman; and the title character, an 80 year-old Holocaust survivor in Martin Sherman’s Rose.
Recent acting work includes guest-starring roles on Law & Order: SVU. A scholarship graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and Arts and the Directing Workshop for Women. Annie is a founding member of the Alliance of Women Directors. Her short film, The Sheet Cake, has been shown on PBS stations throughout the South.