CVRep: Brent Barrett and Bernie Blanks Will Present Their Cabaret on Thursday, July 18th
by Audrey Liebross
This is a fabulous week for cabaret fans at Coachella Valley Repertory (CVRep), which is presenting two cabarets on Wednesday and Thursday, July 17th and 18th. The day after Glenn Rosenblum’s Wednesday July 17th show, musical theatre veterans Brent Barrett and Bernie Blanks, a married couple with fascinating resumes, will perform, accompanied by musical director Chris Lash on the piano and a locally hired bass player and drummer.
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Bernie and Brent by Zoom about the cabaret, their careers, and even dogs. In our half-hour conversation, they taught me a great deal about putting together cabaret performances.
Those familiar with my writing or who know me personally are aware that I am an insane phan of The Phantom of the Opera. Brent is an alumnus of the role who recently appeared at the McCallum as part of the Four Phantoms tour. However, the Phantom is hardly the extent of Brent’s musical theatre experience; he has played Billy Flynn in Chicago, King Arthur in Camelot, and Frank Butler in Annie Get Your Gun, among other roles.
Brent Barrett and Bernie Blanks
Bernie has appeared in, among other shows, Starlight Express, Miss Saigon, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, and A Chorus Line. A true Renaissance individual, Bernie is not only a performer who adores country music but is currently serving as a nurse practitioner in the field of aesthetics. He and Brent live in Las Vegas, Nevada, where Bernie’s practice is located and where their dogs (the one I met on Zoom is an adorable shih-tzu) love to jump in the pool and, as soon as they get wet, climb on human laps.
I asked Brent and Bernie how preparing for a role in musical theatre differs from planning a cabaret. They noted that the songs in a musical are character-driven, but in a cabaret, “you choose the songs you want to do or you choose the theme and then you string it all together.” For a cabaret, “there’s a personal connection” between the performers and the music.
Brent and Bernie use scripted patter between the songs, although they point out that some performers prefer to ad lib. And they noted that cabarets must contain a variety of music. While “people love to hear ballads” because they “love to be moved emotionally,” an entire show consisting only of ballads would put the audience to sleep -- “you don’t want every song to be a ballad.” They add that a cabaret “should be about yourself;” the audience should “walk away like they've learned something about you.”
One thing I learned from Bernie and Brent is that cabaret performers often make the mistake of “trying to make the cabaret a history lesson,” which they do not recommend, unless the show is specifically themed around a composer or a lyricist. Otherwise, “it should be like somebody's in your living room and you're telling stories.”
Although the couple said they agree on almost everything – a secret to their twenty-year relationship – they have one difference: Bernie speaks fluent German and does cabaret patter in German in German-speaking countries. Brent, on the other hand, who has performed the title role in German-language productions of The Phantom of the Opera (Das Phantom Der Oper), had to learn everything phonetically, engaging in an hour of dialect practice every day. Brent said that it is a bit easier to learn a foreign language role for a sung-through musical such as Phantom, because the performer is learning mostly songs. He noted wryly that, while he was lucky that it never happened to him, a performer who doesn’t know the language but who gets lost cannot just make up lyrics until they get back on track, as they would in their native language.
Brent and Bernie called it “a blessing” and “a joy” to be able to be with their spouse onstage and to perform together in a show about each other. Bernie described their show as “two guys who are a couple singing beautiful songs to each other.” What can the audience expect to hear them present at CVRep? The emphasis will be on Broadway, but they’ll do pop and country pieces as well. Bernie and Brent will also perform a rhythm and blues version of “We Kiss in a Shadow,” from The King and I, singing to each other in what promises to be a moving number.
Brent noted that touring can be difficult, and he just got back from the Four Phantoms tour. Nevertheless, he and Bernie are keeping busy – in January 2025, they plan to travel to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for four performances in two clubs, entertaining tourists and locals, including the large, English-speaking expat community.
Brent Barrett and Bernie Blanks will appear at CVRep on Thursday, July 18th, at 7 p.m, with refreshments, including alcoholic beverages, available starting at 6 p.m. CVRep is located at 68-510 E. Palm Canyon Drive, Cathedral City, California (at the corner of 111 and Cathedral Canyon). The box office is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and one hour prior to performances. You can also order tickets online at https://cvrep.org, by email at boxoffice@cvrep.org, or by calling 760-296-2966 ext 0.