About

The Stoop Storytelling Series is a Baltimore-based live show and podcast that features “ordinary” people sharing the extraordinary, true tales of their lives.

The mission of The Stoop is to build community through the sharing of personal stories.

Stoop stories are not memorized, performed, or read. They’re shared.

Stoop shows are intimate and surprising, wonderful and weird, hilarious and heartbreaking.

Since its founding in 2006, The Stoop has featured the tales of more than 2,500 people onstage — including notable citizens such as Congressman Elijah Cummings, “Wire” creator David Simon, activist DeRay Mckesson, and Senator Barbara Mikulski.

The Stoop has been featured in The Washington Post and The New York Times.

Wanna listen to The Stoop? Here are three ways.

  • Check out The Stoop Podcast, which captures the spirit of the live shows with weekly episodes featuring stories and narration from hosts Laura Wexler and Jessica Henkin.
  • Listen to past Live Shows dating back to 2006.
  • Use our handy search box to scan our archives by show, storyteller, keyword, or venue.

In addition to its mainstage shows at The Senator Theatre, The Stoop presents Special Events, Workshops, and Second Stoop open mic evenings.

If you’d like to bring The Stoop to your venue or organization, email info@stoopstorytelling.com.

Founders, Producers, and Hosts

Laura Wexler is a Baltimore-based writer and producer who creates narrative projects based on little-known true stories. She is the co-writer and executive producer of DINNER PARTY, a Virtual Reality thriller that won a $100,000 Alternate Realities Grant and world premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Her writing credits include PANDORA’S BOX, a one-hour drama pilot sold to Amazon Studios; the narrative nonfiction book, Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America (Scribner); and journalism published in The New York Times, The Washington Post Magazine, and elsewhere.

Jessica Henkin works for Baltimore City Public School’s Office of Early Learning Program. She’s passionate about her family, special education, Baltimore City, keeping her house clean, rescuing strays (both animal and human), finding most things funny—and, of course, storytelling.  She has studied and performed improv comedy for over two decades in both New York City and Baltimore.

Thank you to The Stoop Sponsors