MOUNT VERNON — They have the pilot, they have the location.

Now all that’s needed to propel two local performers and a historic theater to stardom is a buyer.

A year-and-a-half after filming what would turn into a 20-minute comedy sitcom pilot at the Lincoln Theatre in downtown Mount Vernon, television and film producer Bob Goodwin hopes he can find a network willing to take on what he thinks will be a laugh-out-loud sitcom based on the original Bellingham sketch-comedy “The Cody Rivers Show.”

Goodwin is inviting the public to a screening of the pilot at 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 20, at the Lincoln Theatre. The public screening might tell Goodwin whether viewers will embrace the show as much as he has — especially after he and show creators Andrew Connor and Mike Mathieu have worked so hard on it.

Goodwin decided to try to bring the sketch show to television after seeing it performed almost four years ago in Bellingham. The overwhelmingly positive response from the crowd and his own gut-busting laughter convinced him that it had real on-screen possibilities.

In addition, he hoped that creating a successful television show filmed in the Pacific Northwest would help attract more entertainment business to Washington state.

So the producer of a long list of hit television series and films, including “Life Goes On,” “The X-Files,” “The Fugitive” and the police drama “Third Watch,” approached the Cody Rivers duo, who eagerly agreed to take a chance with their show.

Mathieu and Connor created the comedy/variety show almost five years ago and have been performing it in theater venues up and down the I-5 corridor, including Mount Baker Theatre and the iDiOM Theater in Bellingham. Their unique blend of improvisation, Monty Pythonesque humor and slapstick has earned them critical acclaim and sold-out performances.

The series’ plot revolves around country western star Cody Rivers (played by Mathieu), who comes up to a small town in the Pacific Northwest and buys an old theater where he plans to perform his own show. Rivers convinces his brother, Mitch (played by Connor), to move from California to help him with the show. Five highly dysfunctional characters pitch in to help run the show. Then the series will focus on the behind-the-scenes antics of the crew and the Cody Rivers duo.

When it came to finding a backdrop for the show, Goodwin said the Lincoln fit the bill for its size, age and atmosphere.

Although the pilot was shot in January 2008, the project has been on hold while Goodwin wrapped up production on the recently released sci-fi feature film “Alien Trespass.” Most of the “Cody Rivers” editing work has been done intermittently while Goodwin and others involved have been hustling to finish other products.

The editing and post production was finally completed in July, Goodwin said.

Goodwin recently signed with Gersh, a talent agency, to help sell the show to the networks.

“We have absolutely no idea how it will go over,” Goodwin said. “But we’re being told that cable networks that run comedies are all looking for something different. You never know until you try.”

Connor said he and Mathieu have seen the pilot and were impressed with the way it turned out. They’d been working with Goodwin for several years, helping to develop the show’s concept and write the script.

“This is the first real professional-scale work we’ve done on camera,” Connor said. “It’s amazing how much difference a couple of seconds here or there, and a couple of cuts makes between something that works really well, and something that’s really rough.”

“The Cody Rivers Show” pilot was a unique challenge for editors, Goodwin said. Trying to reduce a brilliant 20-minute-long comedy sketch written by Mathieu and Connor into a four-minute set that still carries the same comedic punch took creative cutting, Goodwin said.

Despite the idea that they could become nationally known, Connor and Mathieu said they haven’t been holding their breaths.

“As soon as we shot it, for our own sake, we said, that’s wonderful, it was a great experience and maybe something will happen with it,” Connor said. “But we had to emotionally move on so as not to sit around and keep our fingers crossed.”

Beverly Crichfield can be reached at 360-416-2135 or .

Read more local news in the Skagit Valley Herald and the Anacortes American, or read it online in the E-edition