“Ya gotta have a gimmick!”
These words of advice performer Hugo Immediato passed down to his daughter Vicki Immediato Winton 35 years ago.
In fact, Hugo and brothers Nick and Al had two gimmicks: one was in the business of their father, a first generation Italian immigrant who passed through Ellis Island and established a bakery in Little Italy. The other: their athleticism.
The trio hungered for the heat of Broadway lights over that of their father's bakery ovens, and soon became accomplished acrobats who toured on the post-vaudeville circuit and appeared with multitudinous celebrities like Kirk Douglas and Bob Hope before injury brought them back to Wilmington.
Once home, the three, undaunted, proved they weren't done with show business, nor making the most of their gimmicks, and so The Three Little Bakers became the stuff of local legend.
In 1972, theatre, food and their "patented desserts" were mixed together in an entertainment souflee with the opening of Three Bakers Dinner Theatre in Kennett Square, Pa. Vicki, then a college student and part of the growing second generation, was conscripted into service as a hat check girl, bookkeeper and hostess – every night.
The move to Pike Creek Valley and a custom building followed in 1983. For more than 15 years it was almost impossible for locals to book in the 900-seat theatre. Bakers did not advertise locally. Why bother? Five nights a week there were a dozen tour buses in the parking lot with license plates from New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
But by the late 1990s, the market was changing. The entertainment pie was being cut into several slices as casinos opened. The entire mission of Three Bakers was based on family shows, but Broadway was not churning out thematic clones of The Sound of Music.
For their guests -- travelers who had visited Delaware destinations for years with their tour guides -- they thought the show would go on forever. When the theatre closed two years ago, the second and third generation Immediato family members, for the most part, went their own ways.
But Vicki, who was president of the business when it closed, is making sure the show goes on, this time, at the Baby Grand in Wilmington.
She has a fervent and unequivocal belief that the public still wants family fare.
For the second year, her new company, VR Hospitality (under the Three Bakers' banner), is presenting "Home For The Holidays.” Jim Weber, creator of the first Bakers Christmas show in 1990, is both director and music director.
