Kansas City, MI Office of Culture and Creative Services, 14 Dec 2017

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From YouTube: NTDF supports the Quality Hill Playhouse 2017-18 season

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Learn about upcoming events supported by the Neighborhood Tourist Development Fund of the Office of Culture and Creative Services.

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Quality Hill Playhouse is the place for live performances of music from the American Songbook and musical theater. Today we are at quality Hope Playhouse in downtown Kansas City Missouri with producing artistic director Kent Barnhart Kent. Thank you for having us here today. Thanks.

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For him, thanks for asking me and for being here and quality.

A

Hill Playhouse has been around for a while downtown is starting to pop a little bit more and there's a lot of development happening in more recent years, but you've been around for longer well,.

B

Actually this month is our 22nd anniversary. We open December 5 of 2 of 1995, so 22 years, mm-hmm.

A

And the American Songbook a musical theater. What was it about this type of music that we felt was so important to focus the mission around well.

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I have always loved this music I trained as a classical pianist, but I've loved this music, because I think it is our one of the only truly American art forms and I think it is a universal art form, for instance Irving Berlin's god Bless America.

B

He wrote it almost a century ago and now we're we're singing it at baseball games and it's become our anthem and it's become the thing that Bond's us together in good times and bad and I think the American Songbook does that it reaches people universally and keeping it alive in live performance is especially important because then I like to say that you can read a book five times and you can watch a movie five times, but you can only experience a live performance once there's something special about that energy in the room.

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So I love that.

A

And another important part of your mission is working with local local locals. Yes,.

B

Absolutely local talent in all aspects of our productions, whether it be actors, singers, technicians, lighting, designers, directors, all of those people are Kansas City residents. We that is part of our mission statement. We only hire local talent, we want to help grow. The local talent pool give them make, have them, make a living wage and be able to just stay here in Kansas City, but also offer Kansas City audiences. Well, I love it.

B

When people say these people from New, York and know the people from New York are the ones who bought the tickets to see them. It's it's very satisfying to see people discover when they come down to see one of our performances, then they they discover the folly and they discovered the Kauffman Performing. You know they.

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Everything that's down here, and it opens up a whole new world of them. Tell.

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Us about the current show that runs through December 24th well,.

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We are annual holiday celebration, Christmas and song is a combination of sacred and secular, popular and traditional music. So we have three singers and I play piano and sing and it's a collection of all different kinds of music.

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The first act is mostly traditional carols, although many of them are in updated arrangements, more contemporary arrangements, but I also like to include in every show maybe one or two songs that might be new to our audiences. So.

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B

This show, for instance, we're doing a song by Harry Connick jr., that I think will be unfamiliar, but it's it's a lovely piece called I come with love and it's a very uplifting holiday celebration. But, as you and I were talking about earlier, because we're it's only hundred and fifty three seats, it feels like people are kind.

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Of coming over.

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To our living room and we get to share music with them in in our house in our beautiful house, downtown well.

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Speaking of your beautiful house, you just had some changes up front. We.

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Actually added full Lobby we've quadrupled our lobby space and added a full bar with beverage service and a private event space. It's very exciting. Now.

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Can you tell us about January because that's just around the corner, as well as show in January.

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Its we're already working on it, so in January and February we'll be looking at the way the Blues came in, with a show called that old black magic Harold Arlen brings in the blues and Harold Arlen was Jewish and was the son of a cantor but really loved the theater, and he immersed himself from a very young age.

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He left home at 16 and began working with a lot of african-american artists, and he actually wrote shows for the Cotton Club for a number of years, and so the show explores how he melded his Jewish service, music and the african-american traditions together to create something that was new to the songbook, with songs like stormy weather and blues in the night, and that ole black magics get happy accentuate the positive and brought something new into American popular music.

A

That all sounds exciting and, and you have other shows, but people can check out your website to get.

B

Absolutely, what is your website um very simple, WWE quality, Hill, Playhouse calm. All one word: quality he'll play on Starcom we're on Facebook Instagram Twitter. All of that for those it's at the QHP great.

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Well, thank you for sharing time with us in your and your home with us. Well.

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Thank you for coming over and.

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For all that, you do thank.

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The neighborhood Tourist Development Fund supports local nonprofits that bring cultural, social, educational and recreational activities to our area.

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To learn about additional upcoming events, visit KCMO gov, slash in TDF.