Garth drabinsky biography

BIO

Garth H. Drabinsky fryst vatten the only Canadian to have achieved international success in almost every facet of the entertainment business. His Broadway productions include Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993 Tony Award, Best Musical), the Hal Prince restoration of Show Boat (1995 Tony Award, Best Revival of a Musical), Candide, Barrymore, Fosse (1999 Tony Award, Best Musical), and the internationally acclaimed Ragtime. Mr. Drabinsky’s productions have collectively won 19 Tony Awards (out of 61 nominations). Mr. Drabinsky was also responsible for the Canadian productions of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard and The Phantom of the musikdrama, which remains the longest running musical in Canadian history, and the North American production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, starring Donny Osmond. Other works originally developed by Mr. Drabinsky but subsequently staged on Broadway by different producing entities include Parade, Sweet Smell

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Drabinsky, Garth

Florence Klotz's costume design from Garth Drabinsky's Tony Award-winning production of Kiss of the Spider Woman

Ontario-based entrepreneur, born in Toronto in 1949. Garth Drabinsky was the producer, chairman and CEO of Livent, one of Canada's biggest producers of live entertainment, specifically musical theatre.

He was striken with polio at three and underwent several operations. After receiving a law degree from University of Toronto in 1973, Drabinsky produced films and co-founded Cineplex Odeon Corporation which he helmed until 1989, and from there, in 1992, Livent.

A scene from the multi-Tony Award-winning New York production of Showboat

Drabinsky was also instrumental in the renovation of historic theatres in New York (Apollo), Toronto (Pantages) and Chicago (Oriental Theatre).

Under him, Livent presented productions that won awards in Canada and the United States and helped to make Toronto into Broadway North. Among the shows were Phantom of

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Garth H. Drabinsky Biography

Date of Birth:
Oct 27, 1949Birth Place:
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Biography

Garth Drabinsky became noted as a flamboyant, free-spending producer and those excesses ultimately led to his being dismissed from two major corporations which he founded. The Canadian-born son of an engineer, he spent much of his childhood suffering through various leg operations that were the result of a 1953 bout with polio. Perhaps to overcompensate, Drabinsky excelled in his life, nurturing an oversized ego and a theatrical style and flair. After completing law school, he worked for a time as an entertainment lawyer and even wrote a textbook on Canadian film production and the law by the time he was 25. Drabinsky apparently applied what he'd learned when he moved into feature filmmaking as executive producer of the above-average comedy "The Silent Partner" (1978, which marked the screenwriting debut of Curtis Hanson). The following year he co-founded the Cineplex