Graef was born in New York City, and started directing plays at Harvard University, staging the New England première of Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein's opera The Mother of Us All in 1956, and the première of Robert Penn Warren's Brother to Dragons in 1957 [REF].
He directed 24 plays in theatres up and down the East Coast, and was chosen by CBS for its new TV drama directors' program [REF].