The Artist Exists and Creates. Period.
For the average American, the creation and performance of art is something Someone Else Does and yet another thing to be consumed rather than experienced. This is why it is so easy to buy into the premise that, in order to justify the existence of the artist in society, it is necessary to either demonstrate that the art entertains the largest number of people or provides some quantifiable service to those in need.
By morning, he had decided he needed somewhere nobody cared about theater, someplace where the name Chekhov was more likely to be mistaken for a rifle than a playwright.