Thursday, August 6, 2009
Onstage / Performing Arts / Arts Livent Founders Sentenced
Posted by Deanna Isaacs on 08.06.09 at 08:44 AM
The co-founders of once-mighty Toronto-based Broadway producer Livent were handed jail time for accounting fraud yesterday, more than a decade after they were first charged. Garth Drabinsky, who spearheaded renovation of Chicago's Oriental Theatre, was sentenced to serve seven years; his partner, Myron Gottlieb, got six.
Their attorney says they'll appeal. In Livent's heyday, it owned theaters in Chicago and New York as well as in Canada, and produced blockbuster productions of Show Boat, Ragtime, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
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I remember how proud Drabinsky was to show off his no-expense-spared refurbishment of the then-dilapidated Oriental Theatre, prior to opening his superb revival of "Show Boat." He was cock of the walk, a movie-theater mogul who was dabbling in theater for the prestige and revenge factor (a Canadian holding his own with the Broadway biggies).
That worthy restoration remains but his house of cards has collapsed. Still, you have to wonder: Sometimes it takes a selfish rogue to accomplish things that more timid entrepreneurs would never achieve.
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dislikeHere's an update on Drabinsky, who's appealing his fraud conviction and is charting a return to producting theater in Toronto: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nation…
