Emerging talents shine at Quality Hill Playhouse

The Quality Hill Playhouse audience has its favorites, but the regular patrons of the intimate downtown theater always seem eager to welcome new faces.

That’s because they trust executive director J. Kent Barnhart’s judgment. But it could be they don’t much care who’s singing as long as they like the sound.

For the current show, “Judy Barbra Liza,” Barnhart has brought together three vocalists — Lauren Braton, an impeccable singer and a Quality Hill favorite; Ashley Pankow, making her third appearance at the theater, and Christina Burton, who makes her Quality Hill debut with this show. As usual, Barnhart gives them all opportunities to dazzle.

Pankow, 30, is a native of Wisconsin. She previously appeared in the QHP productions of “Broadway and Back” earlier this year and “The Musical of Musicals: The Musical” in 2014. She moved to Kansas City in 2013 with her husband, Marc Liby, the former executive director of the Great Plains Theatre Festival in Abilene, Kan.

Liby is now manager of audience services for the playhouse, but he’s also an actor who delivered a memorable performance in the Unicorn Theatre production of the musical “Hands on a Hardbody” last year.

Before Abilene, Pankow spent five years in New York — although she worked a lot in regional theater while she was based there. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in musical theater from Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wis.

When she arrived in Kansas City she didn’t know what to expect from the theater community. She quickly realized this is a town where a professional performer could find work.

“I just hoped I would get a call back,” she said. “And being Equity (the union for actors and stage managers), I knew it would be hard to break in.… I understand it’s a small-knit community. I think it’s a great town for non-Equity kids right out of school, I didn’t really expect much. But I was completely blown away by the interest in new people.”

Burton, 27, is a KC native and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance with an emphasis in musical theater from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She was very happy when Barnhart asked her to make her first Quality Hill appearance in “Judy Barbra Liza.”

“I’ve known Kent over the years but mostly from going every year and auditioning for him,” she said. “I ended up being in the right place at the right time.”

When she isn’t performing, she finds gigs as a choreographer and has appeared in industrial shows for EPIC Innovative Events, a for-profit section of Starlight Theatre. For the Unicorn she choreographed “Hands on a Hardbody” and the rock musical “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.”

The challenge for performers in Quality Hill shows is shifting gears between different songs by different songwriters and making each one a specific bit of storytelling.

“There’s enough time backstage to kind of change your character enough,” Burton said. “I’m trying to convey the idea of the song. I’m singing all of Sally Bowles’ songs, but I’m not playing Sally Bowles. I’m singing Liza Minnelli songs.”

Sally Bowles is the female lead in the musical “Cabaret.” Minnelli played her in the film version.

Burton has appeared in straight plays occasionally, but for the most part she’s a song-and-dance actor.

“I’ve always been the singer and the dancer,” she said. “Song and dance is a different way of enhancing a character’s emotions, but doing a straight play, you have to be incredibly real and incredibly raw and you can’t hide.”

Often, Burton said, she recalls something one of her UMKC professors, the late Gary Holcombe, told her and other students: “Don’t cheat me.”

“It works,” she said.

Burton and Pankow both play piano. And they said working for Barnhart was a satisfying challenge.

“One thing I love about working with Kent is that he truly picks and shapes the show for his singers,” Pankow said. “It’s humbling and it’s flattering.”

This story was originally published June 10, 2015 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Emerging talents shine at Quality Hill Playhouse."