I was reading an interview Kushner had with a member of the University of Chicago Arts Department and this response caught my eye when he was asked the importance of the arts being introduced to people in school. (He also uses a vocab word we had a lot, fun fun!)
"Absolutely. I think that if you’re going to be a playwright, I think it is enormously important to read history, to read political theory to read philosophy, to read psychology, and you know, to specialize in ... one subject with a kind of intensity that you do when you major, so that you’re not completely a dilettante.

You have enough opportunities to be a dilettante later on. Life really is dilettantism in a sense I mean, when you write, when he or she decides to attack a subject has to become. You acquire as deep a knowledge as you can acquire in the amount of time that you have to acquire it which is usually months or a couple of years. And that is not enough to gain a deep knowledge. Essentially you achieve the dilettante status.

Critical skills as a reader will stand you in very good stead as a writer and also in very good stead as an actor, or a director or a painter. Being able to read the text and interpret it effectively, confidently with acuity and discernment is enormously important for the arts."

If you want to read more of the interview, here's the link: http://www.courttheatre.org/m/article/q_a_with_tony_kushner/