The Live Entertainment Corporation of Canada, better known as Livent, was a theatre production company based in Toronto, Ontario. Founded in 1989 by former Cineplex Odeon executives Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb, the company initially found success with its production of The Phantom of the Opera at its Pantages Theatre in Toronto. In 1993, they brought Kiss of the Spider Woman to Broadway, winning the Tony Award for Best Musical. They became known for lavish productions with their 1994 revival of Show Boat (estimated to be the most expensive production in Broadway history at the time), and their ambitious 1998 original musical Ragtime.
In 1998, Livent announced the discovery of "accounting irregularities". Revised financial statements showed previously undisclosed losses, and the company filed for bankruptcy protection. As a result, the company's stock price plummeted, and its assets were eventually sold off in 1999. The company's collapse led to criminal and civil litigation. An Ontario court found that Drabinsky and Gottlieb had systematically doctored Livent's financial statements, and sentenced them to jail terms of several years for fraud and forgery.
At its height, Livent was the largest live theatre company in North America,[1] and was the first publicly traded company dedicated to live theatre. Livent used Toronto as a testing ground for its pre-Broadway tryouts and has been credited (along with its competitor, Mirvish Productions) with elevating Toronto to the second-most important destination for live theatre in North America, and bringing hundreds of millions of dollars of tourism income to the city.[2]
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