Tim Robbins’ first time getting paid as an actor was through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1981 he became the founding artistic director of the Actors’ Gang, a theater company that has made community outreach, through educational programs in local schools and California prisons, its hallmark. — Actors' Gang co-founder Tim RobbinsThe Actors’ Gang has received $138,000 from the NEA in the form of nine grants since 2003. The Prison Project started in 2007 at the behest of Actors’ Gang member Sabra Williams. “We have the drug and it’s the arts,” Robbins says.

Source: Los Angeles Times April 07, 2017 16:29 UTC