"This is HUGE!" Mayor Charlie Luken says happily. "I'm not even sure everybody in Cincinnati understands how big this is."

That's the Regional Theatre Tony Award, which brings Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park into the spotlight that's been focused on the big doings on the city's museum scene for more than a year.

Playhouse picks up the award in New York on June 6, but the celebration started Monday with a pizza and Graeter's party for the theater's staff.

Many give Ed Stern, producing artistic director of the Playhouse in the Park, much of the credit for the Tony Award. The Cincinnati Enquirer/CRAIG RUTTLE

The Tony is good news for the Playhouse, for the city's theater scene and for the city, well-wishers agree.

"It's fantastic," says Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival artistic director Brian Isaac Phillips. "Theater begets theater," and he believes that artists - actors, directors, designers, backstage crew - from around the United States will "be looking at Cincinnati a little more closely. This proves we have a pretty vital scene."

Douglas Lowry, dean of University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music, says the Tony recognition is "a testament" to the Playhouse's "ambitious, adventuresome" vision that is "not preached but delivered."

He also thinks the national prize could have far-reaching impact on Cincinnati - including being a factor in aspiring students' choice to enroll at CCM, its own national reputation bolstered by the theatrical work being done in the city.

Playhouse and CCM have long shared an informal affiliation; Lowry has composed original music for Playhouse productions.

There could be more, Lowry notes. "We need to do a better job of taking advantage of the artists who come to a first-rank regional theater. I hope we can do more (together) in the future."

The Tony isn't just Cincinnati's to celebrate. Playhouse in the Park is the first Ohio regional theater to be honored with a regional Tony and Ohio Arts Council executive director Wayne Lawson says, "Everybody in the state should be excited."

Cincinnati's Rick Steiner, the producer who took home Tony Awards in 2002 and 2003 for best musicals for The Producers and Hairspray (and a Tony voter), won't be making it three in a row this year, but he'll be cheering for the Playhouse at the awards ceremony and credits producing artistic director Ed Stern for putting Cincinnati on the list of best regional theaters in the nation.

"Balancing new and existing work, innovative with popular, it's a difficult thing to continuously do. You can't be just an artist or just a businessman." Steiner pauses. "I used to think James Brown was the hardest-working man in show business, but Ed Stern is."

And, Steiner adds, if Playhouse, which is looking to its 45th season in 2004-05, has been Cincinnati's secret for almost half a century, it's not a secret anymore.

Luken is ready to "shout this from the rooftops - it would be a mistake for the city not to" take advantage of another concrete example of Cincinnati's "arts renaissance."

Luken has already had one conversation with Stern.

Stern isn't celebrating the Tony win by going to Walt Disney World. He's off on the annual Playhouse tour to London. He'll be back in plenty of time to be in New York three weeks from today - and for a great big party at the theater, Tony in hand, on June 7. Details to come.

E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com