RIP Bergamo's

As most anyone in or out of the entertainment world knows, most performers spend most of their lives working a survival job.  You know, those jobs you have to work to pay your bills?  But, it's not necessarily the place you want to wind up retiring from.  Most performers, like myself, wind up working in restaurants because, not only does it pay the bills but, it's a relatively easy job to learn and schedules are usually flexible around auditions.

Now let's face it, I've never been a fan of working as a server but, I've been fortunate to work in different places where I did my job well enough and liked everyone I've worked with so I didn't need to be changing jobs every 6 months.  But there is one place, in particular, that holds a special place in my heart.  That place was Bergamo's.

I started working at Bergamo's Italian Restaurant in January of 2004.  What made this place unique was that all of the servers were performers.  Not unusual for a restaurant I know BUT, in addition to our serving duties we would also perform 4 sets of music every night.  And I don't mean in that crappy Ellen's Stardust kind of way, I mean, opera and musical theater songs in a fine dining atmosphere.

It was probably, even still, the best serving job I'd ever had.  Not because we made crazy money or anything like that but, because it was the only place of it's kind, in Orlando, that allowed the servers to actually do what they loved to do while they were waiting tables.  It wasn't unusual for your server to drop off your martini and the head to the piano to sing a Puccini aria or something from Les Miserables.  To those of you who never went, I know it might sound cheesy but, believe me, it wasn't.

Anyway, more important than the music were the wonderful people I got to meet and work with over the course of the 3 1/2 years I was there.  Little did they know when they met me, what a handful I was going to be for all of them as I was in the midst of a, kind of, downward spiral.  But they were beautiful and talented people who came to be some of my best friends.

I left the Berg in June of 2007 when I decided it was time to move to New York.  And even though a lot in my life (and theirs) has changed, I've never forgotten any of the people that I've met over my time there.  I still think of them often and the impact they made on me (I'm starting to hear the musical strains of For Good in my head, oy!).

This whole post was brought on by the fact that I learned yesterday that Bergamo's finally closed its doors.  Apparently, due to financial issues with the owner that finally did the place in.  It's not really that surprising because the place had been having financial issues since before I ever started working there.  But it's still sad, many very talented people have now lost another outlet to perform in Orlando.

So, I wanted to take some time to give a shout out to all those people from my Bergamo's days.  I can't list everyone here because there are too many to name and I'd be constantly editing to add people I'd forgotten.  I miss you all and wish you all the best!  Yes, I too can be sentimental when the mood strikes me.

Anyway, that's enough for now.

Until next time...

Ok so screw it, I decided to be a sappy sentimentalist after all.  It's my blog, I can do what I want.  This is the best clip I could find of Kristin and Idina doing For Good.  According to the summary, it's from Kristin's last performance.  Forgive the quality and the subtitles.  This song gets me every time.  Have a good one.