Over the last 4 weeks, I've had the privilege and opportunity to meet and work with some amazing playwrights and theater companies. Bekah Brunstetter. Jenny Schwartz. Adam Szymkowicz. Chris Pena. Branden Jacob-Jenkins. Tectonic Theatre Project. Pig Iron. Rude Mechs. art.party. Dog and Pony Theater. WET. American Theatre Co. Trusty Sidekicks. Just to name a few!

I've been completely blown away by these companies and artists and the kind of theater they are making. These are playwrights who get produced regularly, who have an admirable body of work and number of published plays, and whose writing is fresh, engaging and exciting. These are companies that I remember hearing about when I first started getting into theater, companies doing theater work that isunique and ground-breaking. And yet in chatting with these artists, a stunning majority of them have said they still don't make their living doing theater.

A football stadium seats tens of thousands of people. Movie theaters see thousands of patrons walk through their doors every day. Netflix has millions of subscribers, and stand-out YouTube personalities are making a living from just their work on YouTube. And still, making a living wage as a theater artist is next to impossible.

Sure, you could dismiss this as the standard whining of “not enough support for the arts.” You can scoff and say “blog less, apply for grants more.” But the fact remains that a ticket to see Ke$ha can sell for prices that makes the “Broadway records” blush in comparison.

And yes, you can argue that art should be for art's sake, and not commanded by the mighty dollar. That art should rebel against the institution, that it's not about making money but making some spiritual, soulful, and “higher” contribution. But the fact remains that for whatever reason, we as a society currently value other forms of entertainment and art more highly than theater. That even the theater superstars make but a fraction that the movie stars and sports stars make.

What we do know is that the current model in theater isn't working. It's almost impossible for artists to make a living wage; the non-profit and regional theater model is looking at bleak times as grants and the economy shifts; it feels like every artist I speak with talks about how the system does not really support playwrights or new plays or new artists. Our own resident playwright blogger here at theatreface has talked about the broken submission system.

Plus, talking about money and how to make it is still a somewhat taboo subject. It's still awkward to ask how much someone makes, or how they make their money. In all my training programs, there's great concentration on the creative aspect (as there dang well should be!), but sometimes almost to the specific point of neglecting the monetary and “business” side of things. Perhaps it's similar to how kids rarely being taught money management in school leads to many people falling into credit card traps and just not knowing how to handle money. Perhaps artists aren't being trained well enough on how to be entrepreneurial, how to sell their art, how to maximize their creativity both artistically and business-wise.

Yet with this line of thinking, I'm reminded of something a mentor once pointed out that totally stuck with me: If your dream as a director or theater artist is to form your own company, and you follow the non-profit model, you'll be filing paperwork and creating capital campaigns and looking for space and creating a board of directors and doing all the million other jobs of the artistic director. And all this will take tons of time and tons of energy and among it all you haven't gotten to make any theater yet.

Is this just a reflection of our society's valuing of theater? Is this because theater is an ancient art form that is (always always) dying out? Or is theater just in serious need of an evolution in its structure?

Questions, questions, questions...