By Paul Horsley

Keeping a favorite holiday show fresh, year in and year out, requires care and vigilance. Each November J. Kent Barnhart begins the meticulous planning of Quality Hill Playhouse’s “Christmas in Song” by going through hundreds of songs (from his database of thousands) and narrowing the more than 500 Christmas-themed songs to about 100.

From that grouping, he and his singers choose a few dozen songs to create what has become one of Kansas City’s most consistently rewarding holiday programs. This year’s QHP extravaganza, in which Kent is joined by singers Lindsey McKee, LaTeesha McDonald Jackson and Vigthor Zophoniasson, runs November 19th through the December 24th.

But if you want commercial ditties or tacky popular tunes (“Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer”), this is not your show. “I’m always looking for meaningful songs,” Kent said. “Because it is ‘Christmas in Song,’ not ‘Winter Wonderland in Song.’ We don’t shy away from actually celebrating Christmas.” In fact, he said, it’s even a rarity that the word “Santa” appears anywhere in the show. “This show celebrates the birth of Christ. We don’t try to dilute that message or hide it.”

Nevertheless the program, now in its 22nd year, draws broad and enthusiastic support from its regulars, who come from a variety of faith backgrounds. And it does quite well with single-ticket and group sales as well. (This season’s run includes 38 performances!) “This is our longest-running show of the season, and it’s a big chunk of our annual revenue,” Kent said. The goal is to permit the audience to “have an emotional journey of the joy, the reflection, the different emotions that can be associated with Christmas.”

This year’s program, he added, is “contemplative but joyous, with a couple of surprises thrown in.” Of course it wouldn’t be complete without the occasional “White Christmas” thrown in, though Kent said he’ll be mixing things up. “I don’t want people to be hearing something they just heard in their car on the way over here. Or if they did, I want them to hear it here in a more interesting arrangement.”

Kent adds that he’s “always looking for a combination of the traditional and the new.” And because this year’s performers are all classically schooled, he has tried to pick repertoire that highlights gorgeous voices, though he said they won’t sing as voluminously in the tiny Playhouse as they would in an opera house: Instead they’ll explore less formal and to some extent more subtle aspects of vocal art.

“This year I have three operatically trained singers,” Kent said, “all of whom have performed on opera stages here and elsewhere. So it’s a chance to do things that are challenging in different ways than usual.” The 2015 program features carols of Alfred Burt, a Michigan minister who from 1942 to 1954 sent Christmas cards featuring originally composed Christmas carols on them (“Bright, Bright the Holly Berries,” “The Star Carol,” “Some Children See Him”).

“He wrote them as Christmas cards to his friends and family,” Kent said, “with the stipulation that they not be published until after his death. So for years he wrote Christmas carols and stories that accompany them, and he alternated each year between sacred and secular. After his death his family published them and circulated them.”

Also included on the “Christmas in Song” program are serious-toned numbers such as Charles Gounod’s “Ave Maria” and “Bright Star” by the American composer Norman Dello Joio. “That’s the wonderful thing about our audience,” Kent said. “They’re eager to hear new things.”

‘Christmas in Song’ runs November 19th through December 24th. For tickets and more information call 816-421-1700 or go to qualityhillplayhouse.com.

At top: LaTeesha McDonald Jackson and Lindsey McKee / Photo courtesy Quality Hill Playhouse

To reach Paul Horsley, Performing Arts Editor, send email to phorsley@sbcglobal.net or find him on Facebook (paul.horsley.501) or Twitter (@phorsleycritic).