Scott Rudin is gone but guess who’s back? Actual professional criminal GArth Drabinsky.
The Canadian theater producer whose company was called Livent is planning his own revival with “Paradise Square,” a new musical coming to Broadway in February 2022.
Drabinsky is now free to travel back and forth between the US and Canada. But that wasn’t always the case. He served time in Canada for fraud and forgery. The complaints against him in the US were dismissed after 10 years because he’d fulfilled his time in Canada.
So who wouldn’t want Garth Drabinsky back in New York and on Broadway? He can regale us all with tales of his five years in prison. I’d certainly invest with him, wouldn’t you? In November 1998, Livent sought bankruptcy protection in the US and Canada, claiming a debt of $334 million, and securities regulators in both Canada and the US began investigating Livent’s books.
What happened next was a massive legal proceeding you can read all about on Wikipedia. After prison, in 2017, the Ontario Securities Commission permanently banned Drabinsky from becoming a director or officer of any public company in Ontario. The OSC also prohibited him from acting as an investment promoter, and banned him from trading securities (other than as a retail investor, for trades within his RRSP or through a registered dealer for accounts in his name only).
So really, everything should be fine here.
The new musical’s creative team includes director Moisés Kaufman and choreographer Bill T. Jones, with a book by Christina Anderson, Marcus Gardley, Craig Lucas and Larry Kirwan. Graciela Daniele will provide musical staging, in collaboration with Kaufman and Jones.
Just remember: when this goes sideways, you heard it here first. Remember, Bialystock and Bloom’s follow up hit to “Springtime for Hitler” was set in prison.
