When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020 and forced businesses and theaters to shut down, Riverhead\u2019s historic Vail-Leavitt Music Hall was no exception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOnce I saw the way that COVID was going, that\u2019s the end of it,\u201d said William Miller, president of the music hall\u2019s council. \u201cWe shut down to save all the money we could and we lived on Shuttered Venue Operators Grants, [which] kept us going through.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those grants provided emergency assistance for eligible venues affected by the pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The theater, which was established in 1881 \u2014making it the oldest theater on Long Island or in New York City, according to its website \u2014 finally reopened almost a year and a half later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vail-Leavitt Music Hall is a nonprofit organization and its building is on the national and state Registers of Historic Places, but in order to raise funds for needed repairs, the hall\u2019s technical director, James Gorman, reached out to connections in the music industry \u2014 and that became the Save The Vail program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Save the Vail program is a series of concerts that are held at the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall in which the performers donate their talent and time to help build funding for the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall Restoration and Preservation fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat funding all goes to just paying the bills and trying to set up a war chest to eventually get to the bigger stuff that has to get done,\u201d Mr. Gorman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The top priority repairs include replacing the roof and the theater seats, electrical work and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re starting from scratch,\u201d Mr. Miller said, \u201cYou have a building that needs everything done to it, including literally turning it around \u2014 so we are no longer bringing in people off Peconic Avenue \u2014 to work with this town for the riverfront.\u201d There have been four Save the Vail concerts so far. Frank Latorre and the King Bees kicked off the series in August and returned just before Halloween. Gene Casey and the Lone Sharks performed in September and Who Are Those Guys in October. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their latest show was with Frank Latorre and the King Bees just before Halloween on October 29. The concerts have been $20 for general admission, except for their last show which was $30 and included a raffle ticket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The series has done very well and efforts to save and restore the 200-seat theater are spreading quickly through word of mouth, said Laura Gorman, who assists with public relations for the events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe best thing about [the concerts] is, it\u2019s gotten rid of the impression that we\u2019re closed,\u201d Mr. Miller said. \u201cThere are people coming in; I haven\u2019t seen an unhappy face in this place yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The effort to restore this historic building is a labor of love, Mr. Gorman said. \u201cIt has to do more than just survive,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have to feed it, it\u2019s a living thing in a lot of ways, it can\u2019t just exist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Donations are being accepted through PayPal and a GoFundMe campaign<\/a> that are linked online at savethevail.org. To keep up with \u201cSave the Vail\u201d events, visit facebook.com\/vailleavittmusichall<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020 and forced businesses and theaters to shut down, Riverhead\u2019s historic Vail-Leavitt Music Hall was no exception. \u201cOnce I saw the way that COVID was going, that\u2019s the end of it,\u201d said William Miller, president of the music hall\u2019s council. \u201cWe shut down to save all the money we…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1922,"featured_media":113629,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,1743,35,956],"tags":[86,13949,209,13186,240,15522,308,490],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-113628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-featured-story","category-news","category-the-arts-community","tag-art","tag-covid-19","tag-music","tag-premium","tag-riverhead","tag-save-the-vail","tag-theater","tag-vail-leavitt-music-hall"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n