Livent

The Live Entertainment Corporation of Canada, Inc., also known as Livent, was a theatre production company in Toronto, Ontario, begun as a division of the motion picture exhibitor Cineplex Odeon. In 1989, after an internal struggle within the company, Cineplex executives Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb negotiated to buy the division, which then included the Pantages Theatre, Toronto, and rights to Andrew Lloyd Webber's popular musical The Phantom of the Opera.

Livent joined the mix when the only competition in the major Toronto theatrical world was Mirvish Productions, which was running Les Misérables while Livent's Phantom was running.

In 1993 Live Entertainment Inc. went public on the . The company grew quickly, becoming best known for mega-productions of such musicals as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Show Boat (the highly successful 1993 revival which went to Broadway in 1994), Fosse, and Ragtime.

The company also built or refurbished several theatres (including the Oriental Theatre, Chicago), and entered into management deals with others (e.g.: Ford Centres, in Toronto, Vancouver, and New York City).

By 1997, the company was losing money (a loss of $44.1 million that year alone), and in June, 1998, shareholders approved a deal which saw American actors' agent and ex-Disney executive Michael Ovitz take charge. Things deteriorated quickly between the company and co-founders Drabinsky and Gottlieb. The two were dismissed and escorted, under security, out of Livent's Toronto offices on August 13, 1998. Livent subsequently filed a $225 million lawsuit against them.

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