Kent Barnhart News

Quality Hill Playhouse continues its BROADWAY AND ALL THAT JAZZ series with SONGBOOK OF THE 60S AND 70S at the Playhouse in Kansas City. Directed by Producing Artistic Director J. Kent Barnhart the fourth program in the series runs through May 26. The final installment in the series SONGBOOK OF THE 80S TO PRESENT begins June 14 and concludes the 2018-2019 season at the Playhouse on July 14.

Quality Hill Playhouse continues its 24th Season with a romp through the decade that gave us classic Broadway musicals as well as the rise of vocal jazz in BROADWAY AND ALL THAT JAZZ: SONGBOOK OF THE 50S, an original cabaret revue opening March 8.

Valentine's Day is just over a week away, and it's time to make plans for that special someone. A box of chocolates can make a good gift, but not very creative. You can send an expensive dozen roses, but after a few days they wilt and become are thrown away. Or you can give a gift that instead of becoming trash becomes a wonderful memory, tickets to live theatre.

An uplifting, toe-tapping, amusing winter relief continues at Quality Hill Playhouse with SONGBOOK OF THE 40S, the second installment of their Broadway And All That Jazz 2018-2019 season. A nation engulfed with war took comfort in songs from Broadway musicals, to big bands, to just feel good songs. Poet Rod McKuen once said, "1939 was a terrible time for the world, but it was a glorious time for songs and fighter pilots."

If CHRISTMAS IN SONG at Quality Hill Playhouse does not get you in the holiday spirit, then you are either the Grinch or Ebenezer Scrooge. Directed by J. Kent Barnhart and with Barnhart at the piano Lauren Bradshaw, Brad Dawby and Lindsey McKee celebrate the Christmas season with performances through December 23rd.

Quality Hill Playhouse continues its annual tradition of presenting holiday music in a cabaret setting when CHRISTMAS IN SONG opens November 23. The production features the theatre company's signature blend of sacred and secular Christmas songs, including beloved carols ("Silent Night," "Go Tell It On The Mountain," "Joy to the World!"), classical favorites ("O Holy Night," "Ave Maria"), popular tunes ("White Christmas," Mel Torme's "The Christmas Song," Barry Manilow's "Because It's Christmas"), songs from treasured holiday television specials ("Christmas Time Is Here" from A Charlie Brown Christmas, "The Peace Carol" and "When The River Meets The Sea" from John Denver and The Muppets: A Christmas Together), and even a few hilarious surprises. Vocalists Lauren Bradshaw, Brad Dawdy, and Lindsey McKee, led by pianist/emcee J. Kent Barnhart, will lighten the hearts and souls of audiences with the wonder and joy of the season through some of its most beautiful music.

Quality Hill Playhouse continues its annual tradition of presenting holiday music in a cabaret setting when CHRISTMAS IN SONG opens November 23. The production features the theatre company's signature blend of sacred and secular Christmas songs, including beloved carols ("Silent Night," "Go Tell It On The Mountain," "Joy to the World!"), classical favorites ("O Holy Night," "Ave Maria"), popular tunes ("White Christmas," Mel Torme's "The Christmas Song," Barry Manilow's "Because It's Christmas"), songs from treasured holiday television specials ("Christmas Time Is Here" from A Charlie Brown Christmas, "The Peace Carol" and "When The River Meets The Sea" from John Denver and The Muppets: A Christmas Together), and even a few hilarious surprises. Vocalists Lauren Bradshaw, Brad Dawdy, and Lindsey McKee, led by pianist/emcee J. Kent Barnhart, will lighten the hearts and souls of audiences with the wonder and joy of the season through some of its most beautiful music.

J. Kent Barnhart's Quality Hill Playhouse trots out another of his patented cabaret style revues, "Sinatra's Songwriter."  This revue celebrates Sammy Cahn, the longtime lyricist and songwriter for legendary crooner Frank Sinatra.  If the well loved music of the long Sammy Cahn-Frank Sinatra collaboration pings at your heartstrings, then this cabaret show is for you.

Lyrics take center stage at Quality Hill Playhouse in March as the company pays tribute to two songwriters known for their internal rhymes and worldly wit in the original cabaret revue IT'S DELOVELY: THE WIT OF COLE PORTER AND NOËL COWARD, opening March 2.

That Old Black Magic," runs now through February 18th at Quality Hill Playhouse in downtown Kansas City. A superior cast and outstanding backup musicians make for a typically professional evening of classic tunes this time by Harold Arlen.

Quality Hill Playhouse will pay tribute to Harold Arlen, the man who brought the blues to the Great American Songbook, in THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC, an original cabaret revue which opened on January 19.

Kansas City has many fine holiday traditions. One of my favorites is the annual 'Christmas in Song' presented by Quality Hill Playhouse. It is an eclectic mix of old favorites, newer Broadway presentations, and songs presented in a style different than you might usually hear them.

Quality Hill Playhouse 'Christmas in Song' a cabaret hit with a quartet of bold and beautiful voices rings in the season with their 16th annual event. Now through Christmas Eve take in the American Songbook of Christmas music as performed by J Kent Barnhart, Joseph Carr, LaTeesha McDonald Jackson, and Sarah Labarr with selections that cover a wide variety of popular hits.

Quality Hill Playhouse continues its annual tradition of presenting holiday music in a cabaret setting when CHRISTMAS IN SONG opens November 24. The production will mark the 16th consecutive year of presenting the Playhouse's signature blend of sacred and secular Christmas songs in the intimate 153-seat theatre.

If you are a lover of the 'Great America Songbook,' Kent Barnhart's latest amalgamation of familiar tunes, 'I've Got A Crush On You,' with their origins in the musical theater of the last century is for you. Barnhart, with his trademark, droll sense of humor, leads a devoted audience at Quality Hill Playhouse through a century of music that has long outlived the shows that first gave them birth.

To kick off its season exploring what catapults a piece of music from being merely a song to being a standard in the hallowed pantheon known as the Great American Songbook, Quality Hill Playhouse explores Broadway tunes that became part of American popular culture with its latest production, I've Got a Crush on You, opening September 29.

Several hours spent with Kent Barnhart and friends at Quality Hill Playhouse are never time wasted if you love the great American songbook. The current sold out program features two hours of music celebrating tunes music of Carole King, James Taylor, and a few others of similar genre from the 1960s and 1970s.

Selection of 20th Century songs recalls fun of 60s and 70s

shares new life into Roberts & Hammerstein tunes

A cast of three plus Kent offers a memorable evening of song