I think this is so awesome:

“Tony Kushner, the award-winning playwright who has spent much of his time in recent years writing Hollywood scripts, is the first recipient of a newly created $200,000 prize for playwriting, by far the largest theater award in the nation, and one of the biggest cash awards in any of the arts.”

The Steinbergs are awesome. First of all they fund one of the better classes at DDW and now they’re funding playwrights directly! While their first pick is pretty safe, what excites me even more is that they plan on giving two $50,000 prizes every two years to writers who are just starting out. Which is more money than I will make all year at my full time job.
Putting aside the selfish fact that I would love to get that prize myself I think it is amazing that every two years two young playwrights will have the financial solvency to take a year off work and just focus on writing. Because the biggest barrier to being a writer (for me as well as others) is not having the time and not even being sure if it is financially worth it in the long run to stay in the theatre. I don’t blame any playwright for jumping ship to film and TV but this prize might help bring some of them back, starting with Tony Kushner. I think these prizes will only bring good things to American theatre.

(Side note: I love Tony's smile in that nytimes photo. That is the smile of man who just won $200,000)