PLAZA PLAYS QUELL DRUG DEALING

The show goes on every evening at 6:36 in Olympic Plaza -- and the crime
rate goes down.

The drug deals fade away as an audience of hundreds takes the chairs on the
amphitheatre steps. Homeless people gather round and watch, often after
helping set up the show, a fine Summerstock production of Fiddler on the Roof.

Fiddler started last week and runs every night until Friday, on a stage
built over the reflecting pool. Everybody involved notices the positive
impact on the whole area.

Summerstock is a young people's theatre group that works for nine months at
Chinook College to put on its annual show.

This year, my daughter's in it, so I'll concede to being biased. But
everybody else, including audiences that come to their feet every night,
feel that these young people put on a remarkable entertainment.

Apart from the pure pleasure of it, the social benefits are striking.

"There's no doubt that the crime rate really does go down when there's
programming like this in the area," says downtown Ald. Druh Farrell.

"Summerstock is absolutely wonderful -- Ald. Madeleine King and I were
delighted when they approached us last year about performing in the plaza.

"The more of this kind of activity we get, the better the plaza will be."

There's more all the time, thanks to the admirable Olympic Plaza Cultural
District, which my colleague John Gradon wrote about Friday.

John pointed out that on Aug. 12 last year, a shot was fired in the plaza,
during an altercation that saw young men running through the reflecting pool.

Summerstock was performing Guys and Dolls that week, but the performers had
a day off, so the stage was dark.

Summerstock security people who were guarding the stage and set called in
the shooting.

Everybody connected with the plaza feels that if the show had been on, the
fight wouldn't have happened -- or at least not there.

"We all believe that," says executive producer Brandie Sedore. "There's
never any trouble on nights when we're performing."

What happens, instead, is generous and friendly co-operation between the
show and the street people.

"We encourage co-operation with the people who inhabit the area, and we
always get it," says director Jim Senft. "The young street kids always get
involved and become very protective."

Last year, Senft says, a cast member inadvertently got left behind after
the LRT closed down. A group of street people walked this boy all the way
to his suburban home to make sure he was safe.

Druh Farrell says such things happen wherever declining downtown spaces are
rejuvenated with performance and artistic events.

The best example in the world, perhaps, is New York's Bryant Park, which
used to be a needle park shunned by everyone but addicts and criminals.

From that condition, far worse than Olympic Plaza's, Bryant Park has been
transformed into a wildly popular space with a summer film festival and
performances of Broadway hits.

That can happen in Olympic Plaza, too, but it's going to take more work
from the city, and some money.

The reflecting pool has leaked for years. The green space needs a redesign
so the sightlines are more open.

The Olympic Plaza Cultural District could use funding, although it has done
wonders with its shoestring annual budget of $50,000.

There's already a spectacular show on the wall of Teatro restaurant by the
Springboard Dance Company. The U of C's Wagon Stage does free interactive
theatre for children, and Latino Expo is coming up Aug. 26 to 29.

For much of the year, though, the plaza remains dark -- and a lure to those
who thrive in the dark. Calgary's signature downtown space deserves far more.