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TAMPA — For months, the Old Seminole Heights Neighborhood Association has promoted a documentary about the area's history.
It rented Tampa Theatre for Thursday night and worried it'd look silly if only 200 people showed up.
Organizers had no idea.
"Are you serious?" Regina Van Wart asked the employee at the box office. Yes, he said.
All 1,446 seats were full.
Seminole Heights: An Intimate Look at the Early Years sold out. More than 100 people lingered on the sidewalk, without tickets.
Suzanne Prieur, who spearheaded the project, came outside to tell the crowd there would be no second showing that night. No way she or resident filmmakers Gene and Krissy Howes could've anticipated the interest in Seminole Heights history.
"Stunned is how I'm feeling," she said. "Completely stunned."
Among those who didn't get in was 84-year-old Anne Ramsey, who lived in the neighborhood in the 1930s. And the owners of the Front Porch Grille, who bought the DVD and invited everyone left out to watch it at the restaurant.
But two Blake High School teenagers held out hope.
Demelza Hays, 17, has lived in the neighborhood all her life. She had a ticket, but her boyfriend, Carlos Pons 18, didn't.
Meanwhile, Greg Tear, whose friend was interviewed in the documentary, also had no ticket. He haggled with Hays for hers. The ticket was worth $5. She wanted $12, so she could buy a DVD. Tear offered her $6.
"You're halfway to your DVD," Tear told her. "Who else would show up?''
"You don't have 12 bucks?" she asked him.
"I do, but I don't want to negotiate," he said.
Hays got quiet and looked into the theater, its concession line empty, the movie already started. "I'll think about it."
Then, a woman she didn't know walked up and gave her a ticket. "Here," Annie Hart said. "Take it."
"Really?" Hays asked and thanked her as she ran into the theater. "That was a miracle."
Alexandra Zayas can be reached at azayas@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3354.
[Last modified: Apr 21, 2008 11:45 AM]
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