The show that killed Livent?

Advertisement for The Lion King, Vancouver City Centre SkyTrain station, Vancouver, BC

It is the late 1990s in New York city. On Broadway two entertainment giants are going head to head in a battle from which only one will emerge alive. (Yes a cliche, but true, at least for Livent.)

Livent had enjoyed some a great deal of success with a revival Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with Donny Osmond, and a somewhat controversial revival of Showboat.

The new show was Ragtime, based on the book by E.L. Doctorow. After a successful tryout in Toronto, and a year of tweaking in Los Angeles, the show was going to tackle Broadway opening January 1998. Set in and around New York, and with a cast filled with historical characters such as Henry Ford, Evelyn Nesbitt, and Harry Houdini, the show was a massive undertaking.

Running across the street was a strange show with puppets and actors. The show's director, Julie Taymor, was better known for her opera productions. But backing Julie Taymor was one of the most powerful forces in entertainment, Disney.

Ragtime received 13 Tony nomination and The Lion King got 11. But the ones that really matters are best leading actor, best leading actress, and most important of all, Best Musical. Both shows had nominations in all three categories. Ragtime won for Best Book, Best Original Score, Best Orchestrations, and Best Featured Actress (Audra McDonald).

In the end The Lion King won the Tony for Best Musical. Ragtime ran for two years on Broadway, however the box office for couldn't keep up with the costs of running a show with such a large investment in the production and huge cast. In November 1998, Livent went bankrupt and the show closed in January 2000.

Ragtime turns up every few years as a lower-cost concert-style production, while The Lion King is still running on Broadway and has earned over $1 billion USD there, and a total of $6 billion USD in all of the worldwide productions.