All Will Rogers knew, he claimed in one of his most famous quotes, was what he read in the newspapers.
Except when I talked to his current Broadway touring company alter ego, Bill O'Brien, who is playing the title role in "The Will Rogers Follies."One of the segments in the musical, arriving next week at the Capitol Theatre as the opening show in the Theater League of Utah's 1994-95 season, has the beloved humorist using a local newspaper as a source of topics for his Ziegfeld Follies monologue. But in Vancouver, British Columbia, where the company was performing at the time of the interview, both of that city's newspapers were on strike and O'Brien had to settle for a national Canadian newspaper. He had a tough time because it carried very few local stories capable of being turned into Will Rogers-style one-line editorial comments.
O'Brien and Rogers share some common ground.
Both were Midwestern farmboys who left the farm in order to pursue careers in theater.
"The Will Rogers Follies: A Life in Revue" marks the fourth national road tour for young O'Brien, who previously had the title role in "Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story"; George Bailey in a musical version of "It's A Wonderful Life" and Orin, the diabolical dentist, in "Little Shop of Horrors."
Besides acting, singing, playing the piano and guitar, O'Brien has done some composing and writing. He's reached the point where he's comfortable enough with the Will Rogers role to write his own dialogue for the "All I know is what I read in the newspapers" bit . . . as long as there's a newspaper handy to peruse for current local stories.
All the jokes in the script are very United States-oriented, according to O'Brien, and much of the Will Rogers vaudeville humor has been lost on audiences in Canada.
"But the show is a lot of fun, and audiences are really warming up to it," O'Brien said.
"My family was musically inclined," he said, telling about growing up on a northwest Iowa pig farm. `My brother and sister and I sang at a lot of weedings. I learned to play the piano by ear, and Mom plays the piano. Dad has no real musical talent - except he whistles really well - but we're all music lovers. We're not the Von Trapp Family, but there was always music around when I was growing up."
One facet of Will Rogers' talent O'Brien picked up after getting the role was rope twirling.
"I got a video of `The Ropin' Fool' (Rogers' 1922 silent film featuring many of his famous rope tricks) and started practicing. Mostly it was just grabbing the rope and twirling it a couple of hours a day," said O'Brien.
His stopover with the touring musical will mark O'Brien's second visit to Salt Lake City. He was here last winter skiing with some friends at Alta.
O'Brien noted that the dance routines for the touring production - a lot of splashy Florenz Ziegfeld-style numbers - were adapted by choreographer/director Steven Minning, who assisted Tommy Tune and Jeff Calhoun with the original Broadway production.
(Tune is currently mounting a new production, "Busker Alley," featuring himself and Utah native Keene Curtis in the cast. It's scheduled for a brief run next June at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco.)
- RIMA SARA SZALAY (pronounced Zah-lay . . . the "s" is silent) portrays Betty Blake, the woman who becomes Mrs. Will Rogers and the mother of their four children - all shown growing up in the crazy world of vaudeville.
Szalay gets some of the best songs in what is a very tuneful score: "My Big Mistake," "I Got You," "No Man Left for Me" and "My Unknown Someone," along with a couple of great duets - "We're Heading for a Wedding" and a jaunty vaudeville number, "The Big Time."
The "Will Rogers Follies" tour began in August in West Point, N.Y., and since then the company has been all over the place, from cities in Texas to Boise, Idaho, and a month in California.
Szalay is looking forward to making her first visit to Salt Lake City (the recent stopover at Salt Lake International Airport en route to Boise doesn't count). The Washington, D.C., native noted that she had just moved to Sausalito, a charming little community just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.
And, while it wasn't planned that way, "The Will Rogers Follies" marks the third time that Szalay and O'Brien have been in the same casts. They both had major roles in "Little Shop" at Caesars/Tahoe, and they appeared as George and Mary Bailey in a touring musical version of "It's A Wonderful Life."
College roles at the Baltimore campus of the University of Maryland included Joanne in "Godspell" and Eliza in "My Fair Lady," but Szalay claims she had never considered a career in musical theater. She just sort of drifted into it. She has a degree in technical video programming, which involves behind-the-scenes work in editing and producing videos, and she was doing secretarial work when her mother suggested she audition for "The Little Shop of Horrors."
"I went to the auditions and talked like my aunt . . . and was offered the lead in the national tour," she said.
"I must have been a ham from birth," Szalay said, noting that she never had any professional vocal or dance training. "I always just sang in the shower or in my car."
But she's especially pleased to be working in a show that brings such a positive response from audiences.
"You feed off the audience, and when they respond to certain things, you give back that much more," she said, adding that some people think the show is about Roy Rogers, not Will. "I've had people stop me in the hallway and ask if I play Dale Evans.
"But the audiences love it - especially the political commentary," she said. "The show has wide appeal. The older crowd remembers Will Rogers and the younger ones enjoy the dancing and the Ziegfeld costumes, and there's a dog act and roping for the youngsters."
The touring company is booked through next September.
- ANN MILLER'S name in the "Will Rogers Follies" cast list really stood out from the rest.
Obviously, this was not the famous long-legged, raven-haired star of "Kiss Me, Kate" and a bunch of other MGM movies from the heyday of Hollywood musicals.
No, this Ann Miller is barely a kid - fresh out of college (University of California at Irvine). She got the role of a Ziegfeld chorus girl in the show just three days before graduation.
She was a dance major at UCI, working in small revues, mini-productions and choreography projects. Her previous professional experience included an industrial show for Disney in Las Vegas.
The young dancer explained that Ann Miller is her real name - but if she ever decides to join Actors Equity, the professional acting union, she will have to come up with another stage name. The other Ann Miller - the world-famous MGM star - already has first dubs on the name, and there's an ironclad rule that no Equity actors can use the same names as others in the union.
But for now, the younger Ann Miller loves what she's doing.
"The sit-down kick line was hard to learn," she said, commenting on one of choreographer Tommy Tune's most innovative dance sequences. "It was so easy to make a mistake and get off track, but now we have it down, and we have a lot of fun with it."
She said the show is doing great business and seems to be going over well with the audiences. "It has something for everyone. The older people remember will Rogers, and the younger kids like the dog act."
Miller said Rima Sara Szalay taught her and some of the other newcomers in the touring company how to pack light. For some of the production's split-run dates (those times when it plays two cities in one week), they've learned to pack just an overnight bag in order to avoid lugging heavy suitcases all over.
- RUMORS TO THE CONTRARY, "The Will Rogers Follies" is not entirely sold out.
As of midweek, there were roughly 800 tickets left, spread over all eight performances. Some of these may just be "singles" scattered here and there, but many of them are also prime "house seats" that the production company itself releases.
Performances will be Tuesday and Wednesday, Nov. 22-23, at 8 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, Nov. 25-26, at both 2 and 8 p.m., and Sunday, Nov. 27, at 2 and 7 p.m. There will be no performances on Thanksgiving Day.
For up-to-date information on ticket availability, contact the ArtTix box office at the Capitol Theatre, 50 W. 200 South, at 355-2787.
Tickets may also be available through ArtTix outlets in Albert-son's stores in Fort Union, Sugar House, Orem, Park City and Ogden.