Many of us have heard of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, but did you know that Baltimore has a fringe festival, too?  Charm City Fringe is a new theater festival that aims to highlight and expand the thriving “fringe” arts community in Baltimore. By creating a venue in which a variety of artists and theater companies can come together, the hope is that some cross-pollination will occur, leading to new ideas and expanding audiences. Festival co-founders Zachary Michel and Michael Brush join the Signal’s Lisa Morgan in studio with a preview of Charm City Fringe… 

“It’s what you didn’t learn in high school history.”  That’s how Bernard Kinsey describes the world-class collection that he and his wife, Shirley Kinsey, have amassed over the years. The Kinsey Collection is a world-class showcase of African American art and artifacts spanning more than 400 hundred years, it’s been showing at museums around the country to critical acclaim, and it opens November 2nd at Baltimore’s Reginald F Lewis Museum.  On the eve of the Baltimore opening, The Signal’s Aaron Henkin got a preview and spoke with founders Bernard and Shirley Kinsey…

Back in 2004, on Halloween, we invited a talented local performer to join us for a special reading of Poe’s most famous poem.  Every Halloween since, we’ve made a tradition of unleashing this diabolical archival recording, and this week we’re happy to summon it forth from the crypt once again.  Ladies and gentlemen:  Tony Tsendeas reading “The Raven.”

www.stoopstorytelling.com)" width="189" height="300" style="float: right;">Here’s a story from the “Haunted” Stoop event about a Baltimore police officer’s first official night on the job.  Officer Edward Doyle-Gillespie stepped to the microphone and told this tale…

www.stoopstorytelling.com)" width="263" height="300" style="float: right;">Kate Pratt is a transplant coordinator and a certified eye bank technician.  She shared this recollection in front of a live audience at a Stoop event titled, “Haunted:  Stories of ghosts, regrets, and things from the past that won’t stay in the past.”  Here’s Kate Pratt…

www.stoopstorytelling.com)" width="283" height="300" style="float: right;">The Stoop’s “Twilight Zone” storytelling event brought a seasoned raconteur to the microphone, a retired US Army medic who served stateside as a psychiatric tech in a number of military rehabilitation hospitals.  Jim Karantonis shared this recollection…

We begin this week’s special Halloween edition of The Signal with a story from Jeff Alphin.  Jeff told this anecdote in front of a live audience at a Stoop Storytelling event titled, “The Twilight Zone:  True Tales of the Bizarre and Unexpected.”  Here’s Jeff…

Moira Egan is an award-winning poet, a longtime Signal contributor, and an accomplished literary translator.  She’s also 50 years old and increasingly fussy about the thermostat.  Her poetry collection, Hot Flash Sonnets, gives a lyrically graceful, honest, and witty treatment to a subject that’s usually discussed in hushed tones and only among select company.  Egan visited recently with The Signal’s Aaron Henkin…

Ptolemy Slocum takes the stage at The Windup Space to share a story about the trouble with good intentions, at the Stoop Storytelling event, “Dating Tales:  Stories of Meeting Cute, Failed Fix-ups, and Other Romantic Misadventures.”  

The ancient Greeks prayed to the muses for creative inspiration.  (They also practiced alchemy and believed the human body was made of four humors.)  And while our understanding of science has become more refined over the millennia, the source of creativity is as mysterious to us today as it was in the age of mythical gods and goddesses.  That might be about to change, though, as science tunes in to the human brain – at play.  The Signal’s Aaron Henkin reports…