Since its inception five years ago, the Stoop Storytelling Series has become a fixture at Centerstage, and a favorite among consumers of Baltimore culture. Its format of seven diverse storytellers each telling seven minute stories has proven wildly popular, and in its time has covered topics as diverse as race relations, romantic misadventures, surviving a war and surviving high school.

Tonight the Stoop will change things up a bit, presenting on a Friday instead of its usual Monday, and straying temporarily from its home at Centerstage to visit the Turner Auditorium on the campus of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Tonight’s stories are presented in partnership with Hopkins’ office of cultural affairs, and the theme for the evening is Hopkins Medicine: A World Inside a City.

<i>Is your ass ringing?</i> All kinds of interesting things happen in hospitals.

It’s a fitting title, because Hopkins is a world inside a city. Between the hospital, Bayview campus, Homewood campus and grad school it’s at least a small town inside a city. As such, it can tend to be a fairly insular community, and tonight’s program is sure to be a rare look at its inner workings for the rest of us.

There is certainly no shortage of dramatic and compelling stories that come along with such a sizable medical institution, accounting for the continuing popularity of televised medical dramas like ER, Grey’s Anatomy, et al. It makes sense… inside those walls there’s all the pathos of life and death, pain and suffering, struggle, triumph, and what is sometimes described as miracles. We’ve seen the Hollywood versions of all this, but the stories you’ll hear from first-hand narrators tonight are all entirely true.

If you can’t make it tonight you can still listen to all of the stories being presented in the comfort of your own home, office, car, treadmill at the gym or wherever with the Stoop Podcast. All of their previous stories and storytellers (301 and counting) are now available for free on iTunes.

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Turner Auditorium is at 720 Rutland Ave, 21287. Tickets are $15 advance and $20 at the door with a maximum of 2 per customer, as a sell-out is expected. A Hopkins ID will save you $5. on admission.1-800-838-3006 or brownpapertickets.com to purchase.