A cache of costumes from musicals produced by Livent over the past decade has been bought by Goodspeed Opera House for purposes of rental and/or use in productions at the East Haddam, CT, nonprofit. The $150,000 purchase includes hundreds of costumes from Canadian and U.S. tours or sitdown stagings of Show Boat, Candide, Sunset Boulevard, Joseph..., And the World Goes Round, Aspects of Love, Kiss of the Spider Woman and more, according to a Goodspeed spokesperson. The collection is estimated by Goodspeed to be worth $7 million.

Florence Klotz and Judith Dolan each won Tony Awards for their designs for Kiss of the Spider Woman and Candide, respectively.

In the 1990s, the Canadian-based Livent had a white-hot period of creativity that produced musicals that played North America and England, earning numerous Tony Award nominations on Broadway, before crumbling from financial problems.

In 1999, SFX Entertainment bought the production company and theatre operator. Livent-nurtured shows currently on Broadway and tour are Ragtime and Fosse.

Among musicals or plays with Livent money, interest or involvement include The Phantom of the Opera (in Toronto), The Petrified Prince (Public Theater),Kiss of the Spider Woman (in Canada, London and the U.S.), Show Boat (Canada and U.S.), Ragtime (Canada and U.S.), 1997's Candide (Broadway), Barrymore (Stratford Festival, Broadway and tour), the Donny Osmond revival of Joseph... (Canada and U.S.), Fosse (Canada and U.S.), the revised Robin Phillips staging of Aspects of Love (Canada and tour), And the World Goes Round (Toronto) and The Seussical (in development).

-- By Kenneth Jones