VOCAL GROUP HALL OF FAME Is resurrection in the cards for theater and organization?

Concert DVDs from the Vocal Group Hall of Fame inductions are now on sale.
By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR PENNSYLVANIA BUREAU
SHARON, Pa. -- Tony Butala and the Columbia Theater are no strangers.
As a youngster he watched films in the cavernous building and sang on its stage.
As an adult, he's working to bring back its former glory and make it a viable home for his Vocal Group Hall of Fame.
"When I was a kid growing up, this was a palace," he said as he looked around the darkened theater last week. The once grand building is filled with scaffolding reaching to the ceiling.
It fell into disrepair after a 1981 fire destroyed an attached building used as its State Street entrance. While the flames didn't touch the 1,740-seat theater, it was closed and stripped by its previous owners after the fire.
Butala bought the building at a county tax sale in 1983 and turned it over to a nonprofit group dedicated to overseeing its restoration. That group abandoned the project in 2001 contending it could not raise the millions needed to restore the theater.
Now, Butala, the founder and lead singer of The Lettermen vocal group, is hoping his nearly 10-year-old Vocal Group Hall of Fame will be able to restore it and use The Columbia Theater and the nearby Phoenix Restaurant as its home base.
"This theater is going to be to vocal groups what the Apollo Theater in Harlem is to black culture," he said.
Last week, the Vocal Group Hall of Fame started worldwide distribution of DVDs of its concerts featuring inductees from 2001, 2002 and 2003. They are on sale in all major stores, he said.
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The concert from the 2004 induction will be given to public television supporters this summer as part of its pledge drive. Butala and Mary Wilson of the Supremes are taping segments for that pledge drive next month and it will be broadcast at various times on the different stations.
Proceeds from the DVD sales will be used to restore the theater and renovate the three-story Phoenix Restaurant into a museum, piano bar and restaurant.
Butala sees the museum as a haven for the 75 living artists inducted into the museum.
He says they have memorabilia from more than 150 artists ranging from clothing worn by the McGuire Sisters on the cover of a national magazine to clothes worn by the Backstreet Boys during their Into the Millennium Tour.
"I'm trying to capture the legacy of the greatest vocal groups in the world," he said.
The venture is a labor of love for Butala.
"Nobody's in this for the money. I'd like to leave this as a legacy," the 65-year-old entertainer said.
A working artist who just released his 75th album, Butala and The Letterman still perform 100 shows a year. When not working, Butala has committed to his time to the Vocal Group Hall of Fame.
He announced last month that he was moving back to his childhood home on Sharon's West Hill.
He left Sharon at 10 with his mother for a two-week visit to an ailing relative in California. During the trip, Butala auditioned for and was asked to join the famed Mitchell Boys Choir.
"I remember calling my father to see what to do and he said, 'Whatever you want to do,'" he said.
Butala joined the choir, and four days later he and the other choir boys were filming "On Moonlight Bay" with Doris Day.
He returned to Sharon for a visit about a year later after his grandfather had a stroke, and Butala found his name on the marquis of the Columbia Theater with Day and actor Gordon MacRea. "On Moonlight Bay" was being shown.
Butala recalls performing on the stage between screenings of the movie.
As his career as a child singer grew, Butala's family -- his parents and 10 brothers and sisters -- followed him to California in 1952.
But it was those early fond memories of childhood that brought him back to Sharon. He's hoping a mix of private and state grants, as well as the sales of the Vocal Group Hall of Fame's own products will make his dreams of a museum and venue for Vocal Group Hall of Fame inductees a reality.
"My only regret is that I should have done this 20 years before," Butala said.
cioffi@vindy.com