The Culture Show Podcast

On this edition of The Culture Show , Co-host Callie Crossley and contributors Lisa Simmons, and James Sullivan go over the week’s top arts and culture headlines. Lisa Simmons is the Artistic and Executive Director of the Roxbury International Film Festival and program manager at Mass Cultural Council. James Sullivan is a journalist and author specializing in popular culture and Americana. He’s al...

Political strategist Sarah Longwell, CEO and publisher of The Bulwark and host of The Focus Group podcast, joins Jared to discuss How to Eat an Elephant: One Voter at a Time , drawing on years of focus groups to examine persuasion, voters and political change.  BONUS: If you want even more Sarah Longwell, earlier this year she was in Cambridge at First Parish Church in conversation with Bill Krist...

For this month’s Wednesday Watch Party, Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley and Joyce Kulhawik revisit Disney’s 1993 comedy  Hocus Pocus. Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy conjure up a wicked brew of sorcery and high camp. It was a box-office flop that rose from the grave to become a Halloween hit. We’re dusting off the broomsticks ( and vacuum ) and asking: Thirty-three years later, is...

Can artificial intelligence transform society without putting our jobs, privacy, and safety at risk? Aaron Tang, constitutional law professor at UC Davis and moderator of PBS's Breaking the Deadlock , joins us to discuss the latest episode, AI: Who's in Control? , premiering October 27. Operatic tenor, conductor, and founder of the American Spiritual Ensemble , Everett McCorvey has dedicated his c...

Matthew Aucoin, the MacArthur Fellow and composer, explores mortality, technology and a planet in distress in his vocal symphony Music for New Bodies . Its first studio recording arrives October 30, ahead of a November 6 Boston Modern Orchestra Project concert featuring his music. Donna Ferrato, the pioneering photographer, has spent five decades documenting women's lives, from domestic violence t...

This week on The Culture Show, Jared Bowen is joined by Culture Show Culture Show contributors Joyce Kulhawik and  Lisa Simmons. Joyce Kulhawik is an Emmy-award winning arts and entertainment reporter and President of the Boston Theatre Critics Association. You can find her reviews on Joyce’s Choices. Lisa Simmons  is Artistic and Executive Director of the Roxbury International Film Festival and p...

Bill Barclay, founder and artistic director of Concert Theatre Works, discusses The Chevalier , his musical play about Joseph Bologne, the celebrated 18th-century composer and fencer whose life unfolded against the upheaval of the French Revolution. Featuring the Chamber Orchestra of Boston and musicians from Project STEP, the production comes to Emmanuel Church October 24–25 at 7 p.m. Sarah Trad,...

Mary Grant, president of Massachusetts College of Art and Design , joins us for her monthly “AI: Actual Intelligence” segment, sharing original, algorithm-free insights and observations. -Brendan Kenney, founder and music director of the Firebird Pops Orchestra , previews Disney’s Hocus Pocus in Concert Live to Film. The orchestra will perform John Debney’s score live alongside a screening of the...

Hank Azaria, Emmy Award-winning actor, comedian and voice artist , has spent decades creating characters on The Simpsons . Now he’s taking on another unmistakable voice: Bruce Springsteen. Azaria tells us how a surprise performance at his 60th birthday grew into Hank Azaria and the EZ Street Band , a full-fledged Springsteen celebration benefiting his Four Through Nine Foundation . The band perfor...

Today on The Culture Show: Imari Paris Jeffries of Embrace Boston on personal and collective memory, from Día de los Muertos to the dangers of forgetting or rewriting history. Tony Award-winning Laura Benanti on Nobody Cares, her new one-woman comedy about Broadway, motherhood, marriage and people-pleasing, coming to the Huntington October 22–25. For more information, go here . Isabella Stewart Ga...

Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley and Maurice Parent discuss the week's arts and culture headlines, including: Kelly Clarkson's feud with a Brooklyn novelty shop over a $15,000 mechanical songbird. Comedian Shane Gillis sparks backlash over his latest Saturday Night Live monologue. Britain wants Winnie-the-Pooh back as the beloved bear turns 100. Stevie Wonder celebrates 50 years of Songs in the Key of...

Emily Wilson, acclaimed translator of The Odyssey and The Iliad, discusses her new book, Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea, exploring how the literature of ancient Greece and Rome continues to shape our world. Wilson delivers a keynote address at the Boston Book Festival on October 17. Pulitzer Prize–winning author Stephen Greenblatt joins The Culture Show , to talk about his latest book, “ Dark Renaissa...

Nina Yoshida Nelsen, artistic director of the Boston Lyric Opera, and Bradley Vernatter, CEO and general director, preview the company's 50th anniversary season , featuring four productions directed by women and a world premiere inspired by Bostonians. Next up is André Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire , November 5–8 at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre. Mahesh Daas, president of the Boston Arch...

Bestselling author Michael Lewis discusses his new book, Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State, about federal workers caught in DOGE's upheaval. He appears at the Boston Book Festival on October 16 at 7:30 p.m., in conversation with Geraldine Brooks. Stephen Bowler, co-founder and director of operations at The Nautilus , discusses sustainable seafood and changing tastes in New England. The restaurant...

Chad Smith, president and CEO of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, previews the 2026–27 season , which includes all six Tchaikovsky symphonies, three Stravinsky ballets, a world premiere exploring artificial intelligence. The season also marks Andris Nelsons’ final year as music director.  Marc Brown, author, illustrator and creator of Arthur, celebrates the 30th anniversary of the beloved GBH-produc...

On this edition of The Culture Show, Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley, and Culture Show contributor Lisa Simmons, go over the week’s top arts and culture headlines, which include: The Emmy Awards are leaving traditional television for Amazon Prime Video in 2027. Television’s biggest night is becoming a streaming event. Tom Cruise may be one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, but audiences aren't turning ou...

Author Gregory Maguire joins us to discuss Galinda: A Charmed Childhood , his new return to Oz exploring the privileged, ambitious and still-forming girl who will become Glinda the Good; Wicked is also at Boston’s Citizens Opera House through Nov. 15. Google Books Sherlock Terry, curator of Farm Fashion: Workwear, Utility & Style at Billings Farm & Museum , traces how clothing designed for...

National Book Award-winning historian Nathaniel Philbrick joins us to discuss The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World , his new book tracing how the Gold Rush reshaped the country and helped propel it toward Civil War. Philbrick appears tonight at 7 p.m. at First Parish Church in Cambridge for an event presented by Harvard Book Store. Bridget Lancaster and Juli...

Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart previews the Pops’ fall and holiday lineup, including the third annual Día de Muertos concert and Holiday Pops beginning December 3, plus Disney’s The Muppet Christmas Carol in concert. ABC News chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz discusses her new book, The Hero Next Door: Stories of Patriotism and Purpose , revisiting the post-9/11 generation sh...

Nikki Stewart, Executive Director of Old North Illuminated, and Michael Maler, founder of Crescendo Productions, preview The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: A Musical Reading , coming to Old North Church on Oct. 9 with an original score and optional crypt tours. Grammy-winning soprano Jane Eaglen, faculty member at New England Conservatory and President of the Boston Wagner Society, joins “AI: Actual Int...

The Culture Show broadcasts live from Salem as the city marks its 400th anniversary, with an hour exploring its history, culture and the people shaping it today. Peabody Essex Museum leaders Kurt Steinberg and Petra Slinkard discuss Salem at 400, the museum’s Witch Trials collection and the city’s history beyond 1692. Kurt T. Steinberg, Ed. D., is Acting Executive Director and CEO of the Peabody E...

Former NASA astronaut Cady Coleman joins us to talk about Astronauts for America, a group of more than 100 former astronauts working to defend the Constitution, strengthen democracy and rebuild public trust. Coleman will represent the group at a free public event at Greenfield Community College on October 26. Learn more at Astronauts for America. Artist Banu Cennetoğlu explores the promise of univ...

For this month’s Wednesday Watch Party, Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley and Joyce Kulhawik revisit Bridesmaids , the 2011 comedy that turns a wedding into a collision of friendship, rivalry and spectacularly bad behavior. Fifteen years later, they consider whether its most outrageous moments still deliver, how the film changed the rules for women in comedy, and whether beneath the bridal warfare, air...

David Hockney embraced reproduction as a way to discover art and share his own work with the world. Bing McGilvray, Hockney’s longtime friend, joins us to discuss Hockney Reproduction(s) , an exhibition of more than 90 posters and other works at the Manship Artists Residency in Gloucester through Oct. 18. From the American Revolution to Bruce Springsteen, musicians have used songs to protest, orga...

Artist Suzanne Jackson joins us as the MFA presents Suzanne Jackson: What Is Love , the first retrospective spanning her six-decade career — from her early paintings inspired by people and the natural world to recent works made from layers of acrylic paint that hang without canvas. The exhibition is on view through January 18. Suzanne Jackson: What Is Love at the MFA Brookline native Eli “Paperboy...