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.

The Goodman Theater in Chicago announced last week that its 2015-16 season would include a five-hour adaptation of Roberto Bolaqo’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."

"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."

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."

"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."

Cockrum, 58, has emerged as one of the more unusual donors in American theater. He studied acting at Northwestern University 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, Massachusetts, an Episcopal monastery where he took vows of poverty, in 2003.

Until now, Cockrum who moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, in 2009 to take care of his aging parents, had made virtually no public comment about his giving plans.

But in an interview 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.

"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," Cockrum said.

But after the curtain fell, he felt "rather sad."

"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."

Then came the "liquidity event" last summer, as he put it. 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, Kentucky, as the executive director.

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 Hofstetter Koman.

Starting last fall, he and Hofstetter Koman visited a number of nonprofit theaters, which he declined to name. At the Goodman, they saw two plays and heard about Fallsb?T long-brewing plans for Bolaqo’s novel.

"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.

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 Bockley and staging a reading in 2012.

"I had been struggling with it for years as a passion project, not knowing whether it could ever be staged," 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.’"

Cockrum said the foundation would announce more grants in the coming months. The work, he said, has become a "full-time occupation."

Still, he said, he has finally found time to read all of Bolaqo’s novel.

© 2015 The New York Times Company