WILL ROGERS MUSEUM — Lynette Bennett has played Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Radio City Music Hall, Broadway and Off-Broadway, Hollywood and London.
Now she will play Claremore Robson Performing Arts Center.
A Tulsa native and TU graduate, she will bring her one-woman show, “Will Rogers, Conscience of America: His Wife Betty’s Story” to Claremore as part of the Will Rogers Days celebration.
Following the 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 4 performance, Bennett will be guest of honor at a reception at Will Rogers Museum.
Bennett wrote and performs the show which covers the time of Betty’s meeting Will in Oologah through their courtship, their life in New York while he was on stage and where their children were born. And then to California, which was home the last years of their marriage before his death Aug. 15, 1935.
At a time when the world needs life enhancing values, Bennett believes Will and Betty Blake Rogers are prime role models. In portraying Betty, she reveals Betty’s intimate experience of marriage to the world’ first multi-media star and a heart-warming glimpse into the private sol of the women whose insights helped create the public Will Rogers.
The poignant time when Betty was with her daughter in the east and learned of Will’s death is sure to bring tears.
Will flew off to Alaska and Siberia with Wiley and Betty flew to New York to join Mary and her sister, Theda, in Maine. It was there the manager of the theater where Mary was appearing, came to their cottage with the news.
His alarming manner put fear in Betty’s heart that something had happened to Jimmy and his cousin, who were traveling by car.
But, alas, it was her invincible Will.
Lonnie Liggitt, Claremore First Presbyterian Church organist and music director and Bennett’s manager, is arranging a collage of music representing Will’s life in music, “his own taste in music.” He is musical director, pianist and arranger for the show.
The show is designated as an official project of the Oklahoma Centennial.
Actor, singer, dancer, Bennett has played a variety of roles — in “Funny Girl” with Barbra Streisand, “Once Upon A Mattress” with Hal Linden and as Queen Eleanor in “The Lion in Winter.” In London’s West End, she played Mary Sunshine in the hit musical “Chicago,” sang the title role in” the Merry Widow” and had opera roles in “The Magic Flute” and “The Merry Wives of Windsor.”
In Hollywood film and television, she co-starred on “Married with Children,” “America’s Most Wanted” and in daytime soap opera as well as appearing on the Johnny Carson “Tonight Show” and at the New York and Sundance Film Festival.
She’s had many return engagements at the famous Hollywood “Cinegrill” cabaret. She presented her act, “Lynette Sings Jeanette,” a song and dance salute to film star Jeanette MacDonald — orchestrated by her former pianist Barry Manilow — throughout the U.S., Canada and Latin America.
She was a featured soloist with the Tulsa Philharmonic.
Bennett, who just returned from appearances in London, is listed in “Who’s Who in Entertainment” and “Who’s Who of American Women.”
Liggitt, advisor to the new Claremore Symphony League, recently helped develop Rogers County’s “Best and Brightest in Music” promoting music, performance and creativity in area schools.
As well as involvement in the business private sector, he has managed and toured with Ernestine Dillard, nationally recognized gospel singer, been a conductor composer and coach, written film scores and presented many organ concerts
He will produce a “Claremore Christmas Concert” Dec. 9 at the Robson PAC.
Tickets are $15, orchestra, and$10, balcony, and can be purchased through the PAC box office at 918-699-7390 or online at www.MyTicketOffice.com.