AMERICAN ORIGINAL 'FOLLIES' CELEBRATE ROGERS.

Byline: Peggy Hager Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Humorist Will Rogers' sayings set to music will share the Lancaster Performing Arts Center stage with cowboy rope tricks, an invisible dog act, yo-yo experts and even a remote-control model airplane zooming over the audience's heads.

With a cast of 40, who go through 150 costumes, ``The Will Rogers Follies'' is the Antelope Valley College Summer Musical Theatre Institute's production of the 1991 Tony-winning musical.

``It's kind of like the kitchen sink show,'' said Mark Branner, the college's theater arts department director. ``It's kind of a very extravagant show.''

The follies will be presented at the Lancaster Performing Arts Center, 750 W. Lancaster Blvd., at 8 p.m. Friday, Saturday and July 26 and 27, and at 2 p.m. Sunday and July 28.

Subtitled ``A Life in Revue,'' the musical celebrates the folksy humorist who learned roping tricks on his father's ranch and became a movie star, radio commentator and newspaper columnist.

His quips are put to song and dance in a performance like the 1920s Ziegfield Follies, with which Rogers once performed.

``It is a great show,'' Branner said. ``The subject matter really fits the Antelope Valley. Will Rogers is really the all-American guy.''

The show didn't come about without a few hitches though.

Branner had originally arranged to bring one of the world's best trick ropers to the Antelope Valley from China to train the show's actors.

When a visa couldn't be secured, Branner went onto the Internet and found a woman in Canada, who knew another person in Los Angeles, who put him in touch with Jim Townsley, a rope spinner who works at the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage.

``He's great. He is the most cowboy of any guy I've ever met,'' Branner said.

``The market for rope spinners is very small. It would be very hard to do a show about Will Rogers without having something about what he was,'' Branner added.

Local people with skill with a lariat are invited to participate in a rope spinning competition to be held during intermission of the July 28 matinee. Participants will all receive free admission to the show.

Ropers must call the college's theater arts department at [phone] for free admission to the show.

Tickets are $18 for adults under 65, $16 for seniors, and $10 for those 17 and under and students with identification. Tickets can be purchased by calling [phone].

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(1 -- 2 -- color in AV edition only; 2 ran in AV edition only) Will Rogers, played by Jeff Hanson, romances Betty Blake, played by Joanne Archer, at left, in ``The Will Rogers Follies,'' coming this weekend to Lancaster. Below, Hanson performs one of Rogers' famed rope tricks.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer