Magical Elves Founders Dan Cutforth & Jane Lipsitz Launch New Venture

Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz (Project Runway), who established their partnership as Magical Elves in 2001, have launched a new media and content venture, Alfred Street Industries.

Alfred Street is currently producing National Geographic’s newly rebooted Brain Games, hosted by Keegan-Michael Key. Other series and projects across various networks and platforms going into production in 2019.

Cutforth and Lipsitz are known for creating some of the industry’s most successful unscripted series and franchises, including the Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning Project Runway. Further credits include the hit series Top Chef (for which they earned a Primetime Emmy Award for outstanding competition program, as well as an Emmy for the series’ digital counterpart Last Chance Kitchen); Netflix’s Nailed It and Sugar Rush; and Oxygen’s Cold Justice and Cold Justice: Sex Crimes. The pair founded Magical Elves, which was acquired by Tinopolis Group in 2014. Cutforth and Lipsitz announced their departure from the company in February.

Joining Alfred Street is Dan Volpe (Below Deck, Top Chef), who will serve as senior VP of content and production. Volpe has developed and produced a range of competition shows, docuseries and more, and has worked previously with Cutforth and Lipsitz on shows such as Top Chef and Project Greenlight.

Erin Rott is also joining Alfred Street as chief of staff.

Cutforth said, “Our early days working on Alfred Street were a time of excitement and possibility as unscripted content changed the face of entertainment. This moment feels very much the same for us—it’s an unprecedented time of evolution and we feel like everything we’ve done to this point has prepared us to thrive in this new chapter for our industry.”

Lipsitz added, “We feel incredibly lucky to be able to re-enter the marketplace now as both producers and directors, and to really have the time and opportunity to tell the kinds of stories we want to tell. We have been overwhelmed by the incredible support we’ve already received from our colleagues and friends and look forward to welcoming everyone to Alfred Street where we feel like anything can happen!”