Musicals of the past will come to life on the stage of Shyrock Auditorium Sunday night with the help of outrageous stage costumes, elaborate musical productions and rope tricks of The Will Rogers Follies.

Will Rogers, an American humorist and actor in the 1920s, made 67 movies and wrote a syndicated newspaper column. He was also famous for his rodeo and Wild West shows involving rope tricks.

The Will Rogers Follies tells two stories:the story of Rogers’ life up to his death in a plane crash in 1935, and the story of The Ziegfeld Follies, musicals with elaborate costumes and production numbers in New York in the beginning of this century.

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Bill O’Brien, who plays Will Rogers, said Will comes out and entertains the audience while the girls are changing for the next production number.

Will comes out and talks about his newspaper column and does a rope act for the audience, he said. I still have not perfected the rope trick. I studied for four months before the show started, and I still practice every day.

O’Brien said The Will Rogers Follies does not take Rogers’ life too seriously in parts.

Anytime the show gets boring we put something silly in, like Will and his wife Betty meeting on the moon, he said.

He said it was a challenge to play Rogers since he is so well known.

There was a lot of literature out there to research this part, he said. I watched some of Will’s films, listened to his radio shows and read his newspaper columns to research the part.

He said the follies are something that you do not see very often.

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The show has won six Tonys in New York and still has the same original costumes that were on Broadway, he said. Wherever we tour, the audience really seems to like the show.

The Will Rogers Follies is showing at Shyrock Auditorium at 8 p.m. Sunday. Tickets on sale at the Shyrock box office, are $19.50. For more information, call (618) 453-ARTS.