The Roy Cockrum Foundation Funds World Premiere of '2666' at the Goodman Next Year

Goodman Theatre announces a world-premiere event made possible by an unprecedented grant in the theater's 90-year history. The Roy Cockrum Foundation will entirely fund 2666, Artistic Director Robert Falls' large-scale stage adaptation of Chilean author Roberto Bolaño's internationally-celebrated final novel.

By invitation only, The Roy Cockrum Foundation awards grants to support world-class performing arts projects in not-for-profit professional American theaters, enabling the theater to reach beyond its normal scope of activities and undertake ambitious productions. The Goodman's Playwright-in-Residence Seth Bockley is Falls' co-adaptor and co-director of the piece, a five-hour, panoramic portrait of the 20th century and an "epic, maddening, mesmerizing adventure" (New York Times).

The production will debut February 6 - March 20, 2016 as a special event in the Goodman's 350-seat flexible Owen Theatre; tickets can be purchased as a subscription add-on (subscribers save 20%) or as an individual ticket, on sale at a later date. Visit GoodmanTheatre.org for information.

"I have long admired Robert Falls as a foremost American theater artist, a singular creative force who has consistently reinvented himself over his three-plus decade career with productions that challenge, provoke and inspire their audiences- at the Goodman Theatre, on Broadway and internationally," said Roy Cockrum, a Northwestern University alumni who spent more than two decades working as an actor and stage manager for theater and television. "It is necessary that we as a society support our artists' big dreams, and financially enable our important theater companies like the Goodman to make them a reality. Bob's vision for 2666 is absolutely exhilarating. I am proud to help make his stage adaptation a reality."

Falls first encountered Bolaño's 2666 in Barcelona in 2006, intrigued by the novel's promotional posters featuring hundreds of pink crosses in a Mexican desert. Inspired and fascinated by the novel's epic scope and structure-spanning more than 100 years, from Spain to Mexico to Germany and beyond, each part varying in style and rhythm-Falls set out to adapt it for the stage. Over the years that followed, he invited Bockley to join him on the project as co-adapter and co- director. Together, they explored the text though workshops and readings, including a five-hour public reading in the 2012 New Stages festival.

"Adapting 2666 with Seth for the Goodman's stage has been an extraordinary event in my artistic career-a project of love, discovery and passion. I never imagined it could become a fully-realized, producible stage work without significantly compromising the story-telling and simplifying the complex technical integration of performance, music and video design. It would simply not be possible without The Roy Cockrum Foundation-and I am enormously grateful for Roy's intrinsic understanding and generous support," said Robert Falls.

Three academics on the trail of a reclusive German author; a New York reporter on his first Mexican assignment; a widowed philosopher; a police detective in love with an elusive older woman-in 2666, all among the searchers drawn to the border city of Santa Teresa, where over the course of a decade hundreds of women have disappeared. Roberto Bolaño (1953- 2003) was born in Santiago, Chile, and spent much of his adult life in Mexico and Spain. A National Book Critics Circle Award recipient, Bolaño's posthumously-published 2666 was named "Best Book of the Year" by Time magazine, New York magazine, Salon.com, L.A. Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Times and the Village Voice.