Pickett Takes a Final Bow

Mike Vouri and Michael Cohen during a benefit performance last fall for the Pickett House in Bellingham – Contributed photo

Help make history and see the final San Juan Island performance of “The Life and Times of General George Pickett” scheduled for 7:30 pm, Thursday, August 21 in the Gubelman Theatre of the San Juan Community Theater.

Mike Vouri (in the title role) and folksinger Michael Cohen have presented the play throughout the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, plus a trip to the East Coast, for more than 17 years. They shelved the comedy-drama in 2009, and then returned to the stage in 2011 to raise money for Park Ranger Darlene Wahl, who was battling cancer.

“I know, we said we were done once before,” Vouri said. “Then the performance for Darlene was so successful that Merritt Olsen (then theater executive director) urged us to bring it back…so we did, and it worked again for a while.”

But dwindling houses here and the death of Chris DeStaffany in January have spelled the end of the San Juan performances.

“We may do the show in some other form elsewhere, sometime down the road, but it will never be the same without Chris,” Vouri said. “Besides, we estimate that we’ve done close to 150 performances by now. That’s enough.”

The show ends where it started in 1996—the Gubelman Thetare.

“That was before the “black box” theatre days when the room was primarily used for meetings and receptions, and we actually rented a Confederate general’s uniform from a costume company,” Vouri said. “Chris came on board the next year and polished the script, we moved to the Whittier Theatre and then we were signed by the Washington State Humanities Commission “Inquiring Minds” series. It just took off.”

The play covers Pickett’s life from his boyhood in Richmond, Virginia, to his untimely death in the 1870s. Along the way, Vouri, as Pickett, offers a brisk interpretation of the 19th Century United States and its territories through Pickett’s life, which touched almost all of the major themes; while Mr. Cohen plays the banjo and sings period songs.

A few of the main events in Pickett’s life included the “Pig War” when Pickett confronted Vancouver Island Governor Sir James Douglas and the Royal Navy over ownership of San Juan Island. The story culminates in the disastrous “Pickett’s Charge” that brought ruin to the Confederate Army at the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War.

Call the theater at 360-378-3210 for tickets and information.

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