Theatre Register

Garth Drabinsky

Shows · Garth Drabinsky

Actor b. 1949

Garth Drabinsky (born 1949) is a Canadian film and theatrical producer and entrepreneur. In 2009, he was convicted and sentenced to prison for fraud and forgery. The sentence was reduced from 7 to 5 years in prison, on appeal to the Ontario Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear a subsequent appeal. In April 2023, a judge dismissed Drabinsky’s defamation lawsuit against American Actor’s Equity for placing him on their ‘Do Not Work’ list, and in July 2024 the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed this dismissal, also dismissing Drabinsky's claim that the union's conduct violated antitrust law. Drabinsky has attempted 3 comebacks all resulting in failure and millions…

Also credited on1 work

Ragtime

These come off the person record, which names a work and not a production. So we can say this name is attached to the work and we cannot say which staging, or in what capacity. For a composer or a writer that is the whole career we hold; there is no cast list to find them in.

In the literature8 passages

  • A similar case might be made for Garth Drabinsky, whose financial dealings have come under government scrutiny. Unlike Mrs. Holzer, however, he was genuinely devoted to the theatre. In 1990 Harold Prince directed a new musical by John Kander and Fred Ebb, Curse of the Spider Woman. It was done in a program at the State University of New Y…ebooks/Engel, Lehman/Words with Music_ Creating the Broadway Musical Libretto - Lehman Engel.txt
  • Garth Drabinsky, now established as a major Broadway force, sponsored a workshop in Toronto in the summer of 1996. The timing couldn’t have been better, for in the spring of that year, Encores! had revived Fosse’s Chicago to tumultuous reviews. That musical would move to Broadway come fall, and maybe this new Fosse revue could nestle near…ebooks/Filichia, Peter/B007L4OWCU EBOK - Peter Filichia.txt
  • Garth Drabinsky’s publicly owned company, Livent, Inc., built a new theater for his show, and wouldn’t deign to use “ordinary” Playbills, but would print his own. Drabinsky also offered a $125 VIP ticket that offered free drinks, access to a private lounge, and bathrooms, he promised, that wouldn’t be as crowded.ebooks/Filichia, Peter/Strippers, Showgirls, and Sharks - Peter Filichia.txt
  • At the Majestic I sang in the published key of C. Hal Prince and Garth Drabinsky were sitting out in the audience. “That was wonderful, Mic. Thanks for flying out.”ebooks/Frommer, Myrna Katz & Frommer, Harvey/It Happened on Broadway_ An Oral History of the Great White Way - Myrna Katz Frommer & Harvey Frommer.txt
  • SHIRLEY HERZ: Broadway has become a theme park. You have Garth Drabinsky with big megamusicals and his two new houses, you have Disney at the New Amsterdam, and something is lost. New York isn’t a four-o’clock-in-the-morning town anymore. They can put up all the signs they want. It was more fun to see a broken bulb and know that there was…ebooks/Frommer, Myrna Katz & Frommer, Harvey/It Happened on Broadway_ An Oral History of the Great White Way - Myrna Katz Frommer & Harvey Frommer.txt
  • Ragtime had opened in Toronto in December 1996, and a Los Angeles company opened in May 1997. Garth Drabinsky developed The Ford Center especially for Ragtime by combining the Lyric and Apollo Theatres. The Ford Motor Company donated a “significant amount” of money over a period of years and had naming rights. In 1999 Livent (US) Inc. wen…ebooks/Green, Stanley/Broadway Musicals, Show By Show - Seventh Edition - Stanley Green & Cary Ginell.txt

Passages naming this person, found by keyword across 178 books. A keyword match is not a biography, and a common name will pull in the wrong one.

What this page does not know

  • What this person played. No cast list we hold records a character against a performer.
  • Any staging. This name appears in no production cast list we hold — 1,877 of 7,139 people are in that position, most of them writers, composers and designers rather than performers.
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