Playwrights Get Paid

From the LA Times:

How do you keep playwrights down on the farm, harvesting their imaginations for theatrical works, after they've seen how much more they can earn from film and television?

The answer proposed Friday by Arena Stage, the leading theater company in Washington, D.C., is to pay five of them "a living wage," with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation footing most of the bill with a $1.1-million grant.

It establishes the American Voices New Play Institute as a three-year experiment aimed at making playwriting a real job, rather than something writers who love the stage try to squeeze in between the teaching or writing for film and television that nearly all playwrights need to make an actual living.