Elephant Eye aims to re-energize Broadway
by HEDY WEISS for the Chicago Sun-Times

Veteran theatrical producers Stuart Oken and Michael Leavitt today will announce the formation of Elephant Eye Theatrical, a company devoted to the creation of new book musicals for Broadway.

Their plan assures that the shows they eventually help create and bring to Broadway have a dependable national network for post-Broadway presentation. And the musicals they plan to nurture - perhaps five major shows over the course of the next 10 years - also will have the kind of themes that will connect to the ever-burgeoning international market for musicals.

published: September 30, 2005

Wang takes lead in show production
.... Five Cent Productions is a new collaboration among the Wang, the Bushnell Center in Hartford, the Ordway Center in St. Paul (which is already partnering with the Wang on “White Christmas”), the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, the Pittsburgh CLO and the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. Together, the organizations now own one-third of Elephant Eye Theatrical, a new company dedicated to developing new musicals for Broadway.

In the name of new theater, a producing partnership forms
The Wang Center for the Performing Arts and four other nonprofit performing arts organizations have joined forces as Five Cent Productions, an independent arts development and producing consortium that will create, mount, and market original musicals for Broadway and its national touring circuit.