Jenny and Craig Zenner in their box office "cubby".

 

BOXOFFICEWALLAS: THE ZENNERS

     Craig and Jenny Zenner flew with Irwin from Myrtle Beach to run the Palace of Fine Arts Theater box office for the film. They worked every showing from July 2 until July 15.

Jenny: It's just been a real Gift to be here. It's been wonderful. It's been very touching at times, seeing people reconnected with Meher Baba, sometimes after twenty years, sometimes after thirty years--people who had no idea who He was, who have come, and they're coming back for their third and fourth time.
           The staff here at the Palace of Fine Arts is a really wonderful staff. And working with Victor and Pascal and Ben and Iris and all our other staff has been fabulous.

Craig: My overall feeling is I'm just overwhelmed at how many people are taking an interest in Baba at one time! From what I've seen, Baba usually nabs one here, one over there. Watching all the people in the lobby at one time has been amazing! Watching them looking and asking questions, and seeing how much more they want to know. That is my summary feeling.

Question: You and Jenny have worked at the box office all two weeks. How many people would you say have seen the film altogether?

Craig: We are averaging about two hundred a day, but most of those people came during the second week, and most of those people who came during the second week were not previous Baba-lovers or from Sufism. They were just brand, spanking-new, "green" people. And it's just really interesting to watch them flood in.

Question: What's the average been per day for the second week?

Craig: I think about three hundred.

Jenny: You know, that's an interesting thing, I was going to break down and change the average. I've done a daily average and I have thought, given how it keeps changing and growing, to just stop and do the second week average, because obviously it'll be more, but I haven't gotten around to that yet.

Question: One more thing I want to ask, because when I came the first day there was this feeling, you know, of disappointment or something, like "Where are the people?" How did that change? Can you talk a little about that?

Jenny: Even the first day, I wasn't disappointed. You know that the people who are meant to be here are here. Of course we were hoping for more people at the beginning. I never thought of it as a disappointment, except some of the late shows might have had just 2 or 4 people.

Craig: The first week was a test for us to be patient. The second week was a test for the people to come. And they came. What Baba wanted to happen, happened.

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