Garth Drabinsky’s encore
‘You think, “Oh, he’s had this history and this is probably something we should think about for a minute.” But people can change’
The story behind the new musical Sousatzka is perhaps more dramatic than the play: Can a disgraced impresario return from jail, in debt and nearing 70, to mount a comeback?
In his midtown Toronto office, Garth Drabinsky rolls across the room in his chair to his stereo. He selects a CD and presses play. He leans back. And waits. Eyes closed, hands clasped atop a blue-checked shirt, denim-clad legs stretched out. The theatrical producer looks at peace — nothing like the harrowed man who walked the media gauntlet outside a University Ave. courthouse after his 2009 fraud and forgery conviction.
Soon, music spills from the speakers at enormous volume, filling the room with sound. It’s from his new musical Sousatzka, which the fallen impresario believes will fill houses here and on Broadway in his return to theatre.
“With five years of development, I believe this represents some of the best work of my life in theatre,” the 67-year-old Drabinsky said of Sousatzka, scheduled for its world premiere four months hence in Toronto. “Creatively, I think it ranks with the best of anything that I’ve done.” That “best of anything” includes Phantom of the Opera and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, as well as Kiss of the Spider Woman, Show
Boat, Ragtime and Fosse; lavish, expensive, awardwinning musicals given life in the 1990s through Drabinsky’s relentless drive for theatrical perfection and, as importantly, millions of investment dollars to keep them running.
Criminal charges in two countries for cooking the books at his former business, Livent Inc., ended that spectacular run nearly 20 years ago.
A United States grand jury indicted Drabinsky and partner Myron Gottlieb for fraud in 1999. In 2002, similar charges were laid against the pair in Canada after an extended RCMP investigation. Drabinsky waged a long, defiant defence here but was convicted and sentenced to five years. His parole ended last month.
Drabinsky has not returned to the U.S. to face charges of defrauding Livent investors. Crossing the border poses a risk of arrest. So, a question: should Sousatzka make it to Broadway next year as advertised, where will Drabinsky be on opening night?
“I don’t know,” he said. “I know where I will be opening night in Toronto.”
He’ll be at the Elgin Theatre, with a cast that includes accomplished Broadway veterans Victoria Clark, Montego Glover and Judy Kaye and newcomer Jordan Barrow. Previews begin Feb. 25. It’s billed as a “strictly limited engagement prior to Broadway” with plans to open in New York next fall. The Broadway brethren are skeptical. If Sousatzka heads south with or without Drabinsky (the unresolved U.S. fraud charges would likely prevent the trip), New York Post theatre columnist Michael Riedel said “Garth would have to demonstrate his cheques aren’t going to bounce.”
“The skepticism on Broadway is where is he getting the money?” said Riedel, who has written extensively about Drabinsky.
“Theatre owners would only give him a theatre if he could show them he’s got the money and they would certainly expect a very large down payment from him. They wouldn’t trust him.”
Yet there is a path to Broadway absolution, Riedel said.
“If he comes back with a great show that everyone loves and makes people lots of money, all will be forgiven.”
In one Toronto circle, there’s no doubt Drabinsky’s encore, pegged at about $11 million to develop and launch, will succeed.
Teatro Proscenium Limited Partnership is a live-theatrical-production company raising funds for Sousatzka and two other Drabinsky projects. CEO Richard Stursberg said the company — which employs Drabinsky at arm’s length on an exclusive contract as its creative producer — was structured so “Garth has no control over any money.”
“He doesn’t own any shares, he’s not an officer of the company, he has no signing authority whatsoever,” said Stursberg, of allaying investor concerns about Drabinsky arising “as a result of his conviction.”
Stursberg, the former executive vicepresident of CBC, said “we’ve raised millions of dollars so far” and that the partnership has been “pretty ruthless at managing costs” for the major production.
One of the Teatro partners is longtime Drabinsky friend and colleague Rick Chad, who owns a Toronto executive recruitment agency. He saw a sneak preview this summer and calls the work “amazing.”
“I’m really excited about this because the world loves to see people who are famous go down, but they also like comebacks,” said Chad, who said he has invested personal cash in the production. “I think this will be the comeback of the cultural community.” Ragtime to jail time Garth Drabinsky’s fall was prolonged and public.
The allegations were serious: That he (and Gottlieb) had directed Livent staff to fudge the books to make the live-theatre company, which had gone public, look more profitable than it was. Livent went bankrupt in 1998 and, according to the RCMP, cost investors nearly $500 million.
Drabinsky proclaimed his innocence from the outset.
The case did not go to trial in Toronto for nearly six years but during that period (and prior to incarceration), Drabinsky remained busy. He worked in theatre ( The Island); film ( Barrymore, starring his friend Christopher Plummer) and sports marketing. (He brought legendary boxer Muhammad Ali to a Toronto Argonauts game as part of a Parkinson’s disease fundraiser.)
While out on bail when appealing his conviction, Drabinsky was the artistic consultant of the 2011 BlackCreek Music Festival — a financial washout that left a trail of unpaid bills and out-of-pocket investors in its wake.
In 2008, Drabinsky went to trial with high-profile Toronto criminal defence attorney Eddie Greenspan at his side. The proceedings before Ontario Superior Court Justice Mary Lou Benotto were covered closely by media in Canada and the U.S.
Drabinsky was found guilty in March 2009 and sentenced to seven years, later reduced to five.
He was jailed in 2011, released on day parole in early 2013 and granted full parole in 2014, which ended in September. (Gottlieb, tried alongside Drabinsky, was also convicted.)
Drabinsky describes that period — from police probe to incarceration — as “the most painful episode” of his life.
“The entire past18 years was emotionally ruinous to my family, first, to me second,” he said. “They had to endure. My wife, my children had to endure. Obviously, it was incredibly destructive to me.”
It was financially ruinous, too. The man who had once presided over arts empires and lost them — first the innovative Cineplex Odeon multi-screen movie houses, then Livent — was broke.
Drabinsky refused to reveal the sum of legal fees he paid to defend himself in criminal and civil court cases. A clue to his financial state emerged during his 2014 parole hearing; Drabinsky told board members he had been loaned $7 million by friends over several years to help cover his legal fees and that he did not have to repay the full amount quickly.
Drabinsky said he intends to reimburse all who aided him.
“It’s common knowledge, it was at the parole board hearing (where he told members) that I had borrowed money from a number of people to stay alive,” he said.
“Otherwise, I wouldn’t have stayed alive. God willing, I’m successful and I’ll be able to make payments back on loans made to me over the years, based on my intention always to be honourable to peo-
ple, which I have.” He hopes Sousatzka is a vehicle to that success.
While in jail, Drabinsky crafted new back stories for main characters that he felt were not fully fleshed out in his inspiration for the play, Bernice Rubens’ 1962 book, Madame Sousatzka.
“I was reading, I was reading a lot,” Drabinsky said of his incarceration, spent mostly at the Millhaven Institution and Beaver Creek correctional facility.
“I was dissecting, analyzing, self-examining for anything I was going to do creatively in the future. I had lots of time to reflect on life and its possibilities.
“In regard to this project, I spent most of the time worrying about the back stories of the characters and how to solve it,” he said, adding he parsed the Rubens book “in terms of its possible musical moments.”
Drabinsky’s highly publicized conviction did not deter acclaimed Broadway players like Clark from working with him. Director Adrian Noble said yes. So did writer Craig Lucas and songwriting team Richard Maltby Jr. and David Shire — all top Broadway talents. Drabinsky said musical theatre’s response to his return has been “breathtaking.”
“What has been clear to me is that my family have never walked away from me and have endured the painful experience of the last18 years — that was overwhelming and incredibly reaffirming to me about my life,” he said.
“But the other aspect is the industry, creatively, has not walked away from me.” Meaning? “To be making calls, even to agents again, about certain actors and for an agent in New York to say to me, ‘It’s so wonderful to hear your voice again, it’s so wonderful to be able to be talking talent with you again,’ it fills one’s heart,” he said.
Stursberg said the large cast of A-list actors who have agreed to perform in Toronto attests to Drabinsky’s creative allure.
“One of the things that’s amazing about Garth is his ability to attract the very best people in the business,” he said. “They love to work with him.” Legendary Broadway director Hal Prince and Drabinsky have been friends for nearly 30 years. Prince, who directed
Phantom, Show Boat and Kiss of the Spider Woman for the Canadian, said he doesn’t condone Drabinsky’s criminal acts but said he’s also a charming, ambitious and creative man.
“I know both sides of Garth. I know what he did and, at the same time, I know what’s good about him,” Prince said from his New York office.
“I’ve been the beneficiary of what’s good about him and, clearly, I’ve been on the receiving end of royalties he didn’t pay (when Livent collapsed). But I have lost no sleep about that.
“I believe the theatre needs creative producers with taste and there is no question that he is that.”
A live-theatre producer assembles all the components needed to stage a show, including script, actors, musicians, crew, financing and ad campaigns. Some, like Drabinsky, are considered creative producers who are more involved in how the work is presented. Clark won a Tony for her work in The
Light in the Piazza. She said she was aware of the producer’s fraud conviction when she accepted the role as Madame Sousatzka.
“It does make you pause, I’m not going to lie,” she said of her initial reaction to Drabinsky’s involvement.
“You think, ‘Oh, he’s had this history and this is probably something we should think about for a minute.’ But I also believe people can change and they can learn from mistakes and it’s important for us to see people for who they are in the present tense and appreciate them for not just for their triumphs but for their mistakes.”
Clark, who has not previously worked with Drabinsky, was quickly hooked by the producer’s passion to tell an important story. She performed at a six-week
Sousatzka workshop this summer in Toronto that was tested before select small audiences.
“I am very passionate about this project, particularly (the storylines) about race and understanding the ‘other,’ ” said Clark, noting the Sousatzka cast is evenly split between white and non-white actors. “I can’t imagine a more timely piece to be working on right now.” Sousatzka, the play “Genius, sacrifice and the redemption of the human spirit.”
That’s how Sousatzka is being advertised.
It actually sounds like the Garth Drabinsky story, as written by Garth Drabinsky: an award-winning impresario returns to musical theatre after a humiliating stint in jail.
“Is that ironically part of my life? Maybe,” he said, shrugging, when asked if the ad copy — approved by him — reflects his Broadway ambition. “But it is written pertaining to the show, not to me.”
The core of the Sousatzka plot: a piano prodigy escapes South African violence. The prodigy, a boy, trains in London, under eccentric teacher Madame Sousatzka, who survived the horrors of the Second World War in Eastern Europe. Tensions eventually ignite over the boy’s future.
In the 1988 movie starring Shirley MacLaine (a film co-financed by Drabinsky’s former Cineplex Odeon business), the prodigy was from India.
Drabinsky is counting on Toronto audiences relating to the characters’ experiences because of what they hear daily in the news: modern-day refugees fleeing danger or hardship in their homelands, often risking death during that flight to new places. Social justice and fresh starts are key themes.
“It’s now proven to be incredibly relevant because of what is happening in the political and social context of the world today,” Drabinsky said of the reworked
Sousatzka, adapted by writer Lucas. “It throws us right into the issue of refugees and exile, which is probably the single most significant event that is the basis of so much anguish being felt by the world’s population today, and resulting in enormous responsibility being heaped on political leaders.”
Drabinsky said “astonishing” independent research backs up his confidence in the show.
The research data came from focus groups invited to the Sousatzka workshop — a bare-bones staging of the musical (no costumes, no backdrops, minimal lighting, sound enhancement and props) under Noble’s watch. Drabinsky reported the key research category of
“definite recommends” was 85 per cent, with 15 per cent saying they would “probably recommend” the show.
Drabinsky is particularly pleased with the show’s music.
“It’s a fascinating series of demands on the musical team because it takes us into five different musical worlds,” he said. Musical inspiration from South Africa, Eastern Europe, jazz, classical and 1982 London is woven throughout the play.
Maltby Jr. (lyrics) and Shire (music) wrote the score. The large musical team includes South African native Lebo M., a Grammy winner who also worked on Disney’s film and theatrical productions of The Lion King.
Toronto-based film producer and director Barry Avrich isn’t convinced Drabinsky made a prudent choice for a “great third act.”
Avrich worked with Drabinsky for about a decade during the Livent days, then as his creative ad man. Avrich also produced the candid documentary Show Stopper: The Theatrical Life of Garth Dra
binsky, shown at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival. Drabinsky and Avrich have not spoken since the film was released. Avrich thinks Sousatzka is risky. “It’s risky because it’s new,” he said, suggesting that a potential Canadian production of a “bulletproof” hit like Hamilton might be a safer bet.
“And it’s risky because Garth has not marketed a major musical or production in 20 years. The world has changed. This city has changed. The demographics and the marketing tools have changed.”
Avrich said he hopes the show is successful but believes Drabinsky may find it difficult to connect with modern attention spans to sell a “sophisticated” production like Sousatzka in “the decade of distraction.”
“The challenge for Garth will be in marketing in a digital and social-media age. It’s not just a question of buying online ads,” the filmmaker said.
“It’s finding the alchemy of social media, digital marketing and traditional marketing and finding the mix that he’s never had to think about.”
Maltby Jr., whose lyrical resumé in- cludes Miss Saigon, said many great musicals that audiences adore — like Fiddler on the Roof, Oklahoma and rap-inspired Hamilton — required risk-taking to launch.
“The safe idea is usually the second-rate idea,” he said.
Drabinsky today
Drabinsky puts his van in park on Yonge St., just outside the Elgin Theatre. He gets out. So does a male assistant who helps him retrieve a black walker from the back of the van.
Drabinsky wheels it to the curb, smoothly hoists it several inches to the sidewalk and walks, with the rolling aid, into the theatre where Sousatzka will make its world premiere. It’s not an easy amble.
Polio struck him at age 3. It’s an incurable, infectious disease that can permanently damage nerve cells that control muscles. The polio vaccine was introduced in Canada in 1955: too late to help the little Toronto boy.
His left leg was severely paralyzed and, over eight years, he had seven major operations on the damaged limb as he grew up. (Drabinsky became lifelong friends with his orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Robert Salter of the Hospital for Sick Children. He spoke at the surgeon’s funeral in 2010.)
“It’s not for nothing that a little kid who got polio — and who shouldn’t have gotten it — somehow managed to take on the world,” Lucas said. “I find that terribly moving.”
“And that energy to get himself out of the chair and to walk when he really can’t walk (easily) is herculean . . . It’s a very bright sun; you can’t stare into it.” In his 1995 autobiography Closer to the
Sun, Drabinsky wrote that the surgeries were performed in summer so as not to interrupt his schooling — an agonizing time to be bedridden when his friends were playing outside.
He recalled in his book that he found comfort in music “which came to fill the emotional gaps in my life.” Through the family’s only radio, singers like Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino and Paul Anka lit his imagination with songs of love and heartbreak during lonely recovery periods.
Sousatzka is the evolution of that passion for music.
So are two other projects. One is set in an area of New York City during the Civil War era, tentatively called Hard Times. It is in production and poised to follow Sou
satzka, Drabinsky said. He won’t discuss the third, other than to say it was sparked by watching a CBS Sunday Morning segment while in jail.
Drabinsky said 17 months behind bars did not destroy his creative spirit or ambition.
“Whether in motion-picture form or television form or musical form or even poetic form, that is my life. I’ve always been an artistic person . . . Nothing in one’s darkest moments — and there have been many — is going to destroy my optimism for life and the need to express myself artistically.” Those dark moments included two more public shamings: being stripped of the Order of Canada and disbarment from the Law Society of Upper Canada.
In addition, the Ontario Securities Commission has resumed its regulatory case against Drabinsky, Gottlieb and a third former Livent executive, Gordon Eckstein, regarding manipulations of the live theatre company books. The next hearing date in the ongoing matter is in February.
Until that appearance, Drabinsky will remain immersed in his third act.
Will Sousatzka be another hit? Stand the test of time, like Phantom? Drabinsky won’t disclose the pace of ticket sales, which opened Oct. 17.
“There’s nothing to tell,” he said. “The show is doing exactly as planned.”
When the house lights come up — at the Elgin or on Broadway — it’s the paying audience who determines a show’s success, said the New York Post’s Riedel.
“It’s very hard to predict if anything’s going to be a hit or flop on Broadway,” he said.
“If you said, ‘I’m going to take a 1,000page French novel about a guy who steals bread and turn it into a musical’ — one would think that sounds crazy, but it turned out to be Les Miserables and it made billions of dollars.
“By the same token, you say I’ve got Bono and The Edge (and) the rights to
Spiderman; it can’t miss.’ Well, it turned out to be one of the biggest flops of all time.”
“I believe the theatre needs creative producers with taste and there is no question that he is that.” HAL PRINCE LEGENDARY BROADWAY DIRECTOR “The safe idea is usually the second-rate idea.” RICHARD MALTBY JR. SONGWRITER WORKING WITH DRABINSKY