 An independent venue that offers music, readings, comedy, and cinema, The Music Hall brings in 130,000 visitors a year.In the past it has hosted musicians like Tony Bennett and authors like Dan Brown.In 1878 a group of Seacoast residents, including a banker, a railroad executive, a lawyer, a housewife, and a clergyman, all members of the prominent Peirce family, joined together to rebuild Portsmouth's only venue for entertainment, which had burned to the ground the year before.