Dueling Pianos in Brea, California at the Curtis Theatre
We returned to Brea Fest in 2026 for our fifth year, performing three interactive dueling pianos shows inside the Curtis Theatre.
Rather than a traditional concert where the audience simply watches from their seats, our shows are built around participation. Guests request songs, sing along, interact with the entertainers, and help shape where the show goes next.
That makes the format particularly well suited for a community festival, where the audience can span different ages, musical tastes, and generations.
A classic rock favorite can lead into country. An ’80s request can turn into a full-room sing-along. A newer hit can be followed by a song somebody in the audience hasn’t heard since high school.
The result is a show that changes with the people in the room.
Five Years at Brea Fest
Our 2026 performance marked Black & White Dueling Pianos’ fifth appearance at Brea Fest.
For an annual event, bringing back entertainment presents an interesting challenge. Returning guests should recognize what they enjoyed before, but the experience still needs to feel fresh.
That is where the audience-driven nature of the show becomes an advantage.
The venue may be the same and our pianos may be in the same place, but the audience changes. So do the requests, musical moments, jokes, sing-alongs, and interactions between the entertainers and the crowd.
Returning to the festival doesn’t mean repeating the previous year’s show. The people in the room help create a new one.
Five invitations back is something we’re proud of, and it demonstrates one of the biggest advantages of interactive entertainment: the format can remain familiar without the performance becoming predictable.
Planning Entertainment for a Community Event?
Bring interactive dueling pianos entertainment to your festival, community celebration, or special event.
Three Shows, Three Different Crowds
This year, we performed three 45-minute sets from 7:00 to 9:45 PM inside the Curtis Theatre.
That schedule worked especially well within the festival environment.
Guests could move throughout the event, stop in for a performance, and continue exploring afterward. As new people entered the theatre, each performance developed its own personality.
One audience might steer us toward classic rock. Another might want country, pop, or old-school sing-alongs. Whatever came our way, the goal remained the same: read the room, keep the music moving, and give the audience plenty of opportunities to become part of the show.
Across the evening, the Curtis Theatre became more than a place to watch live music. It became a place for song requests, singing, laughter, and audience participation.
Why Dueling Pianos Works for Community Festivals
Community festivals need entertainment that can connect with a broad mix of people.
That is one of the strengths of this kind of show.
Instead of building the entire performance around one artist, genre, or generation of music, our entertainers can move between decades and musical styles based on the audience in front of them.
That flexibility gives grandparents, parents, younger adults, and everyone in between opportunities to hear something familiar while still wondering what might come next.
The format also gives organizers something a traditional concert does not always provide: a built-in reason for guests to participate.
Song requests give the audience a direct connection to the performance. Sing-alongs can involve an entire room. The interaction between the entertainers and guests makes the audience part of the entertainment rather than simply spectators.
For festivals and other large gatherings, that flexibility can help bring very different groups of people together around one shared experience.
See Brea Fest in Action
The Result
After five appearances, our goal remains simple: give people a show they can be part of.
Across three performances in 2026, the Curtis Theatre filled with live music, comedy, song requests, sing-alongs, and audience interaction.
For us, being invited back year after year is exactly what a strong event partnership should look like: professional live entertainment organizers can depend on, with the flexibility and audience participation to make each performance different from the one before it.
