A dozen years after Ed Stern's arrival in Cincinnati to take over the creative reins at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, the theater company finally was recognized by the Tony Awards for fostering new plays, building a subscriber base envied by theaters in larger cities and reaching out to several hundred thousand young people annually, the audiences of the future. Stern is quick to deflect praise from himself to those he works with and to the community the Playhouse serves. But he's played a leading role in tandem with Playhouse Executive Director Buzz Ward.   

"Ain't nothing goin' on but the weather, time and old age," Big Joe Duskin is known to say. With all due respect, he's wrong. There's plenty going on for Big Joe these days. One might be tempted to call it a comeback, but in order to "come back" you have to go away, and that certainly doesn't apply to the King of Cincinnati Blues. Besides, he knew about coming back years ago.   

It isn't exactly be the sort of historical marker you'd stumble upon while taking a stroll. It's found at the end of a dreary industrial street in Evanston, fixed to a pole in front of a poop-brown abandoned warehouse overlooking cars whizzing by on I-71. But someone who comes upon it next week (or in years to come) will likely do a double-take reading what happened in that crumbling building where King Records became The King of Them All.   

Forget blow-dried scenesters and self-absorbed spotlight stealers. It's original and compelling artists like H-Bomb Ferguson that halls of fame were designed to lionize for the lucky contemporaries who knew the man and for the envious generations who will only know his music. While the CEA Hall of Fame induction came posthumously, H-Bomb knew he was loved as one of Cincinnati's most outrageously colorful musical figures.  

One of the most heartwarming and vindicating moments of the 2006 Cincinnati Entertainment Awards ceremony came when local Soul/Funk legend Kenny Smith took the Taft Theater stage to accept his long overdue Lifetime Achievement Award. He joked about not accepting it. "Can I turn it down?" Smith said before the CEAs with a hearty, self-deprecating laugh. "No, I wouldn't turn it down. I think it's great that we have something like this in Cincinnati."  

One of the most heartwarming and vindicating moments of this year's Cincinnati Entertainment Awards ceremony will come when local Soul/Funk legend Kenny Smith takes the Taft Theater stage to accept his long overdue Lifetime Achievement Award. If he accepts, that is. "Can I turn it down?" Smith says with a hearty, self-deprecating laugh from his independent insurance sales office.   

During the 10 years that D. Lynn Meyers has served as producing artistic director at Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, she's staged 46 regional premieres, helped establish the League of Cincinnati Theatres and served in a leadership role during the league's early years. It seems fitting that, for the 10th anniversary of the CEAs, Meyers received LCT's Award for Continuing Excellence and was inducted into the CEA Hall of Fame.  

Jack Louiso's joyful sense of fun has, for many years, enabled him to get inside the heads of kids he's mentored and entertained. He's taught kids to sing, dance and act at the School for Creative and Performing Arts for two decades and has served as artistic director for the Children's Theatre of Cincinnati since 1992. Those are the obvious reasons why the League of Cincinnati Theatres named him the 2007 recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award and why he was recognized at the 2007 Cincinnati Entertainment Awards event and was inducted into the CEA Hall of Fame.   

Bill Hartnett and Ellie Shepherd, partners in life and frequently onstage, first acted in a play together 30 years ago with Mariemont Players, and they've enjoyed doing theater in one another's company ever since. They were married in 1982. For their body of work on local stages, Hartnett and Shepherd were honored with the League of Cincinnati Theatres' 2008 "Continuing Achievement Award." They were inducted into the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards Hall of Fame at the 2008 CEA event at Below Zero Lounge.  

Jack Louiso knows kids. Maybe that's because he's kind of a big kid himself. He's taught kids to sing, dance and act at the School for Creative and Performing Arts for two decades and has served as artistic director for the Children's Theatre of Cincinnati since 1992. Those are the obvious reasons why the League of Cincinnati Theatres has named him the 2007 recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award and why he'll be recognized Monday at the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards when he's inducted into the CEA Hall of Fame.