But by who?

The future of theater in a digital age, ranging from nonprofits to Broadway | Harvard Magazine Jan-Feb 2012: “In order to maintain its ideal form, theater needs to be subsidized,” says Robert Brustein, senior research fellow and founding director of the American Repertory Theater (ART). In the 1930s, a tiny sliver of the New Deal Works Progress Administration budget supported the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), which funded a flourishing American stage culture from 1935 until 1939, when Congress canceled funding in reaction to the left-wing character of many FTP productions. Arthur Miller, Orson Welles, Elia Kazan, and John Houseman were among those who launched their careers under the FTP.