The Live Entertainment Corporation of Canada, better known as Livent, was a theatre production company based in Toronto, Ontario. Founded in 1989 by former Cineplex Odeon executives Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb, the company initially found success with its production of The Phantom of the Opera at its Pantages Theatre in Toronto. In 1993, they brought Kiss of the Spider Woman to Broadway, winning the Tony Award for Best Musical. They became known for lavish productions with their 1994 revival of Show Boat (estimated to be the most expensive production in Broadway history at the time), and their ambitious 1998 original musical Ragtime.

In 1998, Livent announced the discovery of "accounting irregularities". Revised financial statements showed previously undisclosed losses, and the company filed for bankruptcy protection. As a result, the company's stock price plummeted, and its assets were eventually sold off in 1999. The company's collapse led to criminal and civil litigation. An Ontario court found that Drabinsky and Gottlieb had systematically doctored Livent's financial statements, and sentenced them to jail terms of several years for fraud and forgery.

At its height, Livent was the largest live theatre company in North America, and was the first publicly traded company dedicated to live theatre. Livent used Toronto as a testing ground for its pre-Broadway tryouts and has been credited (along with its competitor, Mirvish Productions) with elevating Toronto to the second-most important destination for live theatre in North America, and bringing hundreds of millions of dollars of tourism income to the city.

The company was founded in 1989 by Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb, former chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of Cineplex Odeon Corporation. Following an internal struggle within the company, the Drabinsky and Gottlieb purchased its live entertainment division for Can$88 million CAD (borrowing $65m to fund the purchase), spawning an independent business, Live Entertainment of Canada Inc. The name, later shortened to Livent Inc., was originally intended as a placeholder (based on the fact that the company was formed from the live entertainment division of Cineplex Odeon), but Drabinsky and Gottlieb ultimately kept it. With the purchase they acquired the Pantages Theatre in Toronto (now known as the Ed Mirvish Theatre) and the Canadian rights to the popular musical The Phantom of the Opera.

Livent became a publicly traded company in May 1993 with a stock offering that raised $40 million. This made it the first publicly traded company whose primary business was live theatre.

Livent pursued a three-pronged business model which Drabinsky referred to as 'reproduction, restoration, and origination':

In addition, Livent acquired several theatres, beginning in Toronto and expanding to Vancouver, Chicago, and, most notably, the Ford Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, the result of an ambitious 1998 project to construct a large new theatre to house the Ragtime on Broadway.

Livent became known for its lavish and ambitious productions. Their 1994 revival of Show Boat was speculated to be, at the time, the most expensive production ever on Broadway, with an investment of over US$10 million and ongoing costs of $600,000 per week (a more typical cost for a Broadway revival at the time was around $3 million). Show Boat also became the most expensive show to see on Broadway, with standard orchestra tickets priced at $75 (a price point that other shows eventually followed). Livent was noted for "unprecedented ad blitzes", including frequent full-page ads in the New York Times. The company was also known for paying its actors high salaries, a practice which made it unpopular with other theatre producers (who, unlike Livent, typically negotiated actors' compensation through the League of American Theaters and Producers).