On a chilly November night, while the lights at the Youngstown Playhouse shone on another great performance, a different kind of curtain came down.

With the reveal of a sheet, three of the men to whom the Playhouse owes its legacy have been immortalized in the lobby.
Playhouse historian Jack Ballantyne told us first about Arthur Sircom, who worked on Broadway and brought other directors he worked with to The Valley.

"Sircom started and brought immense talent, immense insight," he said, before describing James Cameron's impact. Cameron not only served as a director but also a theater manager, with Broadway credits of his own.

"He was an innovator. He brought the arena theatre on board, he brought classes on board," said Ballantyne.

"And then Bentley Lenhoff came along in 1965 and stayed for 20 years and then came back again for another year...and some of the greatest shows The Playhouse has ever done were done under Bentley Lenhoff."

Lenhoff helped keep the Playhouse alive in the early 2000s during some very rough times, having come from a successful theater background in Michigan.

"It's a wonderful, wonderful thing to be involved with," said Lenhoff's widow Nancy, who joined her daughter and other family members for the ceremony - filled with warm memories and tributes.

"I just think it was a good way to have spent his life. It was a worthy project. It's wonderful to see it still going on. That's the joy of this," said Lenhoff.

Joy that Bentley Lenhoff, James Cameron and Arthur Sircom helped bring to The Valley for generations.