An actor and stage manager turned Episcopal monk who pledged last year to give away much of his $153 million Powerball jackpot to support the performing arts has made his first grant — to a theatrical production as improbable as his own story.
去年，一位演员、舞台监督出身的圣公会修道士承诺，他将捐出自己的1.53亿美元强力球彩票(Powerball)头奖的大部分，用以支持表演艺术。如今，他已将第一笔捐款授予一部舞台剧，这部舞台剧和他自己的故事一样不可思议。
The Goodman Theater in Chicago announced last week that its 2015-16 season would include a five-hour adaptation of Roberto Bolaño’s 900-page novel, “2666,” underwritten by a grant from the Roy Cockrum Foundation. The foundation was established to support projects at nonprofit theaters that “reach beyond their normal scope of activities and undertake ambitious and creative productions.”
上周，芝加哥的古德曼剧院(Goodman Theater)宣布，它的2015至2016演出季将包括一部五小时长的剧目，该剧改编自罗贝托•波拉尼奥(Roberto Bolaño)长达900页的小说《2666》，由罗伊·科克勒姆基金会(Roy Cockrum Foundation)资助。该基金会的宗旨是支持非营利剧院“创作超过正常规模的有雄心和创意的项目”。

“2666,” directed by Robert Falls, the Goodman’s artistic director, and Seth Bockley, its playwright-in-residence, will be supported entirely by the foundation’s grant, which the theater characterized as “in the high six or low seven figures.”
《2666》由古德曼剧院的艺术总监罗伯特·福尔斯(Robert Falls)和常驻剧作家塞思·波克利(Seth Bockley)导演，将完全由罗伊·科克勒姆基金会资助。古德曼剧院称，资助金额“在一百万美元左右”。
Mr. Falls, whose acclaimed production of “The Iceman Cometh” closes this weekend at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, called the gift, which the theater had not solicited, “extraordinary.”
本周末，福尔斯备受赞扬的排演剧目《送冰的人来了》(The Iceman Cometh)在布鲁克林音乐学院(Brooklyn Academy of Music)闭幕。他说这是一份“非凡的”礼物。这项资助不是该剧院主动申请的。
“I’ve never in my life had a foundation or corporation or individual come to us and say their desire was to give money towards work on that scale,” he said. “It’s truly unprecedented.”Mr. Cockrum, 58, has emerged as one of the more unusual donors in American theater. He studied acting at Northwestern University in Chicago and worked as an actor and stage manager for television and theater in various cities before entering the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, Mass., an Episcopal monastery where he took vows of poverty, in 2003.
“我一生中从未遇到过一个基金会、公司或个人来找我们，说他们的愿望就是资助这么大规模的作品，”他说，“它真的是史无前例。”58岁的科克勒姆成为美国最不同寻常的剧院捐赠人之一。他曾在芝加哥的西北大学(Northwestern University)学习表演，并在多个城市担任过电视和剧院的演员和舞台监督。2003年，他加入马萨诸塞州剑桥市的圣约翰福音传道会(Society of St. John)，在那里他发誓守贫。
Until now, Mr. Cockrum who moved to Knoxville, Tenn., in 2009 to take care of his aging parents, had made virtually no public comment about his giving plans.
2009年，科克勒姆搬到田纳西州诺克斯维尔市照顾年迈的父母。直到现在，他没有就捐赠计划发表过任何公开评论。
But in an interview on Friday, he traced the impulse behind the gift to a trip several years ago to London, where he saw Nicholas Hytner’s lavish adaptation of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” at the Olivier Theater.
不过，在周五的采访中，他说这次捐赠起因于几年前的一次伦敦之行，他在那里的奥利维尔剧院(Olivier Theater)观看了尼古拉斯·海特勒(Nicholas Hytner)的精彩改编剧目《黑暗物质》(His Dark Materials)，原著作者是菲利普·普尔曼(Philip Pullman)。
“There was a huge cast, a score from start to finish, special effects every five minutes and a very enthusiastic young audience on the edge of their seats,” Mr. Cockrum said.
“演员阵容十分庞大，从头到尾都有配乐，每隔五分钟就有一次特效，观众都很年轻，特别热情兴奋，”科克勒姆说。
But after the curtain fell, he felt “rather sad.”
但是大幕拉上后，他感到“非常悲哀”。
“I knew that the lack of government support made such productions all but impossible in the United States,” he said. “I made a mental note that if I ever got some dough, I would try to do what I could to support nonprofit theaters being able to do that level of production.”
“我知道，由于缺乏政府支持，美国几乎不可能有这样的演出，”他说，“当时我心想，但凡有些钱，我一定会尽力支持非营利剧院排演这种水平的剧目。”
Then came the “liquidity event” last summer, as he put it. Mr. Cockrum established the foundation and installed Benita Hofstetter Koman, an experienced arts administrator he knew from their days together at the Actors Theater of Louisville, as the executive director.
去年夏天，科克勒姆有了“流动资金”（科克勒姆的原话），所以设立了基金会，安排贝妮塔·霍夫施泰特尔·科曼(Benita Hofstetter Koman)担任执行理事。科曼是一位经验丰富的艺术管理人，他们曾在路易斯维尔演员剧院(Actors Theater of Louisville)共事过。
Mr. Cockrum, who has also made a personal gift of $1 million to the University of Tennessee Medical Center, declined to give the size of the foundation endowment. Applications can be made by invitation only, and are reviewed by him and Ms. Hofstetter Koman.
科克勒姆还向田纳西医学中心大学(University of Tennessee Medical Center)私人捐赠了100万美元。他拒绝透露该基金会的捐赠规模。只有受邀后才能申请，由科克勒姆和霍夫施泰特尔·科曼审核。
Starting last fall, he and Ms. Hofstetter Koman visited a number of nonprofit theaters, which he declined to name. At the Goodman, they saw two plays and heard about Mr. Falls’s long-brewing plans for Mr. Bolaño’s novel.
从去年秋天起，他和霍夫施泰特尔·科曼参观了几家非营利剧院，他拒绝透露这些剧院的名字。他们在古德曼剧院看到两个剧本，得知福尔斯酝酿已久的改编博拉尼奥小说的计划。
“2666,” which became an international publishing sensation after its release in Spanish in 2004 and in English translation in 2008, would not seem like an obvious candidate for the stage. It spans 100 years and features various characters drawn to the fictional Mexican border city of Santa Teresa (loosely based on Ciudad Juarez). Those include three academics trying to track down a reclusive German writer, a widowed philosopher, an amorous police detective and an American journalist reporting on the mysterious murders of hundreds of women.
《2666》的2004年以西班牙语出版后，成为国际出版界的轰动事件，英译本2008年出版。它似乎不太适合改编成舞台剧。小说的时间跨越为100年，各色人物被吸引到虚构的墨西哥边境城市圣特雷莎（大致以华雷斯市为原型），包括努力寻找隐居德语作家的三位学者、一位鳏居的哲学家、一个多情的警探和一位报道数百名女子被神秘谋杀的美国记者。
Mr. Falls became aware of the novel during a visit in 2006 to Barcelona, Spain, where he was intrigued by promotional posters for the paperback edition featuring hundreds of pink crosses in the Mexican desert. He set about adapting it, eventually collaborating with Mr. Bockley and staging a reading in 2012.
2006年，福尔斯去西班牙巴塞罗那旅行时，注意到了这本小说，他被平装本的宣传海报迷住了，海报上是上千个粉色十字架竖立在墨西哥沙漠上。他开始着手改编，最终与波克利合作，2012年举办了一个剧本朗诵会。
“I had been struggling with it for years as a passion project, not knowing whether it could ever be staged,” Mr. Falls said in an interview. “When Roy told me about the kind of work he wanted to support, I said, ‘Roy, you’re talking to the right guy.’ ”
“我在这个项目上花了多年时间，投入了很大的热情，却不知道最终能否上演，”福尔斯在采访中说，“当罗伊告诉我他想支持这种作品时，我说，‘罗伊，你找对了人。’”
Mr. Cockrum said the foundation would announce more grants in the coming months. The work, he said, has become a “full-time occupation.”
科克勒姆说，该基金会将在未来几个月里宣布更多资助项目。他说，这份工作已经变成“全职的了”。
Still, he said, he has finally found time to read all of Mr. Bolaño’s novel.
不过，他说，他最终抽出时间阅读了罗贝托•波拉尼奥的所有小说。