Toronto's Dancap to help develop new musicals

Dancap Productions Inc., the company that is bringing The Drowsy Chaperone and Jersey Boys to Toronto, has joined a consortium that is developing new Broadway-calibre musicals.

Dancap announced Monday that it will become one of 15 strategic partners behind Elephant Eye Theatrical, which is already developing The Addams Family musical and Bruce Lee: Journey to the West.

The move gives Dancap a role in the "creation of exciting new musicals that will play Broadway and stages around the world, including Toronto," Dancap president Aubrey Dan said in a news release.

Five U.S. performing arts organizations and a group of commercial producers are members of the Elephant Eye Consortium.

Broadway producers Stuart Oken, who worked with Disney on the Beauty and the Beast stage version, Michael Leavitt and David Fay of the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in Hartford, Conn., formed Elephant Eye three years ago.

Among the projects in development are:

The Addams Family: A new musical based on the cartoons of Charles Addams, the U.S. illustrator whose sketches were the original inspiration for the TV series, is to premiere on Broadway in the 2009-10 season. Bruce Lee: Journey to the West: A musical that ties together the stories of two Chinese legends — martial arts star Bruce Lee and Chinese warrior god, the Monkey King — scheduled for the 2010-11 season. Saved: A musical based on the film about a Christian high school where students, teachers and parents find faith in unexpected places, to open in spring 2008 off-Broadway.

Dancap has already announced an ambitious schedule of six musical productions to play in Toronto, including My Fair Lady, Avenue Q, 3 Mo' Divas and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

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