$200,000 coming to a playwright

In September, a U.S. dramatist will be handed a check for $200,000 at a dinner in New York. It will be the biggest award ever for American playwriting.

The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, the second-largest U.S. philanthropy devoted primarily to the theater, announced the creation of the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award this week. It will be given every two years to a distinguished mid-career writer in a field that seldom offers big paydays.

“We want to keep writers writing for the theater,” said James Steinberg, a son of Harold Steinberg, the real estate developer who founded the trust in 1986. “It is an honorable thing to write for the American theater, and you don’t have to take a vow of poverty to do it.”