WYPR

The Sprout Touring Film Festival showcases inspirational movies by and about people with developmental disabilities, and as the festival heads to town, we explore some of the cinematic highlights with Sprout director Anthony DiSalvo and Kate McGuire of The Arc Baltimore.

Arthur Magida’s book, The Nazi Séance, is set in Berlin during the 1930’s. It was a time when the German economy was still in shambles after the Great War, and the Nazi party was slowly but steadily rising to power.  The people of Germany were looking for something, anything, to believe in – and so they held séances, psychic readings, and communions with the dead.

Ptolemy Slocum wanted to profess his love to his sweetheart, and he thought the most romantic possible place would be at the top of the Empire State Building.  He shares the fantasy – and the reality – in front of a live audience at the Windup Space, as part of the Stoop Storytelling Series.

The Sprout Touring Film Festival will travel to 40 cities nationwide this year, and the Baltimore screening is just a few weeks away.  Never heard of it?  You’re not alone.  Sprout is a showcase of movies by and about a population generally ignored by the media – people with developmental disabilities.

Author Bernice L McFadden explains how she used her own family tree as inspiration for the book, Nowhere is a Place, a novel about slavery and racial inequality that spans six generations of American history

We talk with Ross Kelbaugh about Maryland’s Civil War Photographs: The Sesquicentennial Collection, the largest collection of Maryland-related Civil War photographs ever published.

Lyricist Adam Trice and resonator guitar man John Decker are joined by poet Steve Matanle on the new Red Sammy release, These Poems with Kerosene.  The trio talks with Aaron Henkin about its penchant for barroom existentialism.

Station North’s black-box theater, The Strand, lights up with the talents of Baltimore’s Stillpointe Theatre Initiative, a small independent troupe that specializes in updating and reinvigorating classic musical theater.

It’s taken him more than 40 years, but Ross Kelbaugh has assembled the largest private collection of vintage Maryland photographs and related material in the state.

How much do you know about your family tree?  For critically-acclaimed author Bernice L McFadden, that question has been an ongoing source of curiosity.  It’s also the inspiration for her latest novel, Nowhere is a Place.  McFadden joins The Signal’s Aaron Henkin for a conversation about the new book.

One of the most bittersweet things, perhaps, about parenthood is that your kids don’t stay kids forever.  Poet Kwame Alexander speaks for many a misty-eyed dad.