WYPF 88.1 FM FREDERICK / HAGERSTOWN
WYPO 106.9 FM EASTERN SHORE
The Signal, a weekly radio magazine produced by WYPR, is devoted to exploring Maryland's thriving artistic and cultural scene.
The Signal, hosted by veteran WYPR personality Andy Bienstock, promises to transport listeners to the region's cultural back roads: the studios, recital halls and basement workshops where art is conceived and brought to life.
The minds behind The Signal senior producers Aaron Henkin and Lisa Morgan, as well as Bienstock -- share an abiding love for the tradition of radio storytelling. Every program is crafted like a book of short stories, a radio quilt sewn together with thoughtful narrative transitions and embroidered with contemplative musical interludes.
Thanks to our Sponsor Contemporary Museum 
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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.
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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. Kelbaugh’s new book, Maryland’s Civil War Photographs: The Sesquicentennial Collection, offers a look at the people who lived and died during the war. Kelbaugh joins The Signal’s Lisa Morgan to share the stories behind the photographs.
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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. Their new production is an Obie-Award winning coming-of-age musical called, The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds her Chameleon Skin. The Signal’s Aaron Henkin drops in at a rehearsal, and he brings us a preview.
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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.
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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.
A serious identity crisis gets an ironically peppy treatment in Stillpointe Theatre Initiative’s musical production, The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds her Chameleon Skin.
Plus: A new collaboration between poet Steve Matanle and the Baltimore band Red Sammy
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Living witnesses to history are a precious (and often overlooked) cultural resource. What young people read in textbooks about 20th century history is alive and well in the minds of neighborhood elders who’ve experienced it firsthand. Taking that into account, a team at UMBC has organized an oral history program called “For All the World to Hear: Stories from the Struggle for Civil Rights.” Producer Aaron Henkin takes us inside the project.
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For most of us, the idea of a ‘trapeze artist’ brings to mind images of the big-top – audiences oohing and aahing while aerialists in sequined costumes dare to somersault through the air at great heights. It certainly is theatre, in its way, but not the kind of theatre that Mara Neimanis is aiming to achieve. The Baltimore aerialist has respect for the circus high-fliers, but she’s using her talents to perform in a way that’s much more intimate and… down-to-earth. Aaron Henkin has the story.
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The Stoop Storytelling Series recently hosted a program at Center Stage called: “Parenthood: Stories about birthing, finding, raising, (and surviving) children.” Seven storytellers took their turns on stage, under the spotlight, in front of a live audience, to share their true, personal tales. First up to the mic was Joe Sugarman.
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Debbie Page works for the Baltimore Country Public Schools in the Office of Special Education, she’s the co-president of the Autism Society of Baltimore-Chesapeake, and she’s also the mom of an autistic son. She shared her tale at the recent Stoop Storytelling event, “Parenthood: Stories about birthing, finding, raising, (and surviving) children.”
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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.
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