Livent Inc.'s Garth Drabinsky to Launch Appeal for Fraud Conviction

According to the Toronto Sun, theatre impresario Garth Drabinsky, who only just began serving his seven year sentence for fraud weeks ago, is attempting to be released on bail while his team of lawyers begin to launch an appeal.

Drabinsky's lawyer Edward Greenspan claimed in the bail application that Drabinsky 'should be released pending his appeal because their case is "not frivolous" and his client is "not a flight risk and his release would not be contrary to the public interest.'

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In 2009, Drabinsky and his partner Myron Gottlieb were convicted on fraud and forgery charges. Justice Mary Lou Benotto of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto said they "systemically manipulated the books" at the now defunct Livent Inc..

Livent's most crucial role came in developing new musicals for Broadway. Drabinsky was instrumental in reactivating the musical Kiss of the Spider Woman after a disastrous try-out in Purchase, NJ. The producer brought the creative team to Toronto and mounted a summer long run of a revised version of the show opening in June 1992. After Toronto the musical moved to London, and finally arriving on Broadway in May 1993 where it won the Tony Award for Best Musical of the season.

A few months after that win, Livent opened a spectacular new production of the classic musical Show Boat at the then brand new North York Performing Arts Centre in Toronto. The show received sensational reviews and a year later opened on Broadway winning the 1995 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical.