The Culture Show Podcast

The Tobin Bridge could become a public artwork about the forces shaping the coast around it. Ryan Edwards, a principal at MASARY Studios, joins us to discuss Eco-Rhythms — also called Accumulating Rhythms — a proposed lighting installation that would respond to tides and other ecological patterns along the Mystic River. To learn more, go here.  Boston’s music history is hitting the road. Matt Bowk...

Peter Wolf came to Boston to study painting, but quickly became part of the city’s musical bloodstream — performing with The Hallucinations, spinning records at WBCN and fronting The J. Geils Band. As MassArt honors him with an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree, Wolf joins us to talk about art, music — and Waiting on the Moon, his memoir of late nights and unforgettable run-ins with Muddy Waters...

A sweeping  drama on MASTERPIECE brings one of Britain’s most famous literary families back to the screen. In “The Forsytes,” actors Stephen Moyer and Jack Davenport play brothers Jolyon and James Forsyte, members of a wealthy Victorian dynasty whose fortunes can’t shield them from rivalry, ambition, and betrayal. To learn more go here . Jill Medvedow, Director Emerita of the Institute of Contempo...

On this edition of The Culture Show, GBH’s Global Correspondent and News Host Jeremy Siegel, Lisa Simmons, and Joyce Kulhawik go over the latest arts and culture headlines on our week-in-review. Lisa Simmons is  Artistic and Executive Director of the Roxbury International Film Festival and program manager at Mass Cultural Council. Joyce Kulhawik is an Emmy-award winning arts and entertainment repo...

Matt Smith has spent 30 years at Club Passim, the tiny Harvard Square room with an enormous folk history. We talk with him about starting as a volunteer, booking artists, and helping shape one of the country’s great listening rooms. To learn more about Passim, go here . WBCN wasn’t just Boston’s rock station. In the late 1960s and early ’70s, it became a platform for anti-war politics, civil right...

Sam Smallidge has one of the more unusual jobs in Boston: he oversees Converse’s archive in Charlestown. We talk with him about building the company’s collection from a spreadsheet and a folder into more than 10,000 items — and how shoes, ads, prototypes, catalogs and company history help tell the story of one of the most recognizable brands in the world.  New England Conservatory’s Preparatory Sc...

Tracy K. Smith,  former U.S. Poet Laureate discusses her book “Fear Less: Poetry in Perilous Times” — an invitation to listen, reflect, and let poetry guide us through uncertainty.  Don Gillis and Ray Flynn join The Culture Show to discuss Gillis’ new book “ The Battle for Boston: How Mayor Ray Flynn and Community Organizers Fought Racism and Downtown Power Brokers .” On June 5th at 6:00 Don Gilli...

James Sullivan,  a journalist, author and longtime contributor to the Boston Globe, joins The Culture Show to talk about his book Which Side Are You On?: 20th Century American History in 100 Protest Songs . From there Aisha Muharrar joins The Culture Show to talk about her debut novel “Loved One.” She’s an Emmy Award–winning writer and producer who has worked on “Hacks,” “Parks” and “Recreation,”...

On this edition of The Culture Show, Culture Show co-host Callie Crossley, GBH’s Global Correspondent and News Host Jeremy Siegel and James Sullivan, journalist,  author and Emerson faculty member go over the latest arts and culture headlines on our week in review We reflect on Ted Turner’s legacy. The Media mogul who built CNN, TBS, TNT and Cartoon Network, died this week at 87. The Tony nominati...

Scott Avett and Seth Avett of The Avett Brothers join us to discuss “Swept Away,” the musical built around their songs. After a 2024 Broadway run, the show is now in Boston at SpeakEasy Stage Company, where it turns the Avetts’ music into a harrowing sea story about a New Bedford whaling crew, a shipwreck and an impossible moral choice. To learn more about “Swept Away” at SpeakEasy Stage Company,...

Pulitzer Prize–winning author Stephen Greenblatt joins The Culture Show , to talk about his latest book, “ Dark Renaissance:The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival .”  It traces the meteoric rise and violent end of Christopher Marlowe—playwright, poet, spy, and heretic—whose genius endures today.   From there, Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore ...

Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart joins The Culture Show with a preview of the Pops’ spring season, running May 8 through June 6 at Symphony Hall. The season includes appearances by Ray Chen, Jon Batiste, Leslie Odom Jr., St. Vincent and more, along with film nights, Pride Night and Gospel Night. To learn more, go here .  Tony Award–winning director Diane Paulus, Artistic Director of the Americ...

Bestselling author George Saunders joins The Culture Show to talk about his novel “Vigil.”  Set over a single night, the book follows Jill “Doll” Blaine, a long-deceased guardian figure who keeps watch over a dying oil executive, returning Saunders to the moral and metaphysical terrain familiar from “Lincoln in the Bardo.”   Actress Claire Foy joins The Culture Show to talk about her film, “H Is f...

On this edition of The Culture Show, Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley, and James Parker, staff writer at The Atlantic, go over the week’s top arts and culture headlines: The Venice Biennale is often called the Olympics of the art world, but this year its international jury made news before awarding any medals. The jury resigned, saying it would not honor artists from countries whose leaders face inter...

Award-winning New Yorker staff writer Patrick Radden Keefe joins us to discuss his latest book, London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth . The book investigates the death of 19-year-old Zac Brettler, who plunged from a luxury London apartment tower into the River Thames, and opens into a larger story of dirty money, criminal networks, police failure, and...

Michael Patrick MacDonald is the bestselling author of All Souls: A Family Story from Southie and Easter Rising: A Memoir of Roots and Rebellion . He joins us to talk about The Rest of the Story , the trauma-informed storytelling program he created to help people use writing to reckon with what they’ve lived through. Jamie Bissonnette is a James Beard Award-winning chef, restaurateur, and founding...

Chadwick Stokes, musician, songwriter, and founder of Dispatch and State Radio, joins us with Sybil Gallagher, co-founder of Calling All Crows , the nonprofit they built to connect music fans with service, advocacy, and feminist movements. They’ll discuss 1972: A Rock Opera , Stokes’ new work about abortion, bodily autonomy, and life before Roe v. Wade, which will have its world premiere at the Am...

Adele Bertei was part of the late-1970s downtown New York no wave scene, playing with The Contortions and later fronting the Bloods. In her new memoir, No New York: A Memoir of No Wave and the Women Who Shaped the Scene , Bertei writes from inside that abrasive, cross-disciplinary movement — and restores the women artists, musicians, and filmmakers who helped define it.  At the Isabella Stewart Ga...

On this edition of The Culture Show, Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley, and Joyce Kulhawik, go over the week’s top arts and culture headlines, which include “Michael,” the new Michael Jackson biopic is reigniting an old argument. The film leans into Jackson’s rise as a child star and global pop phenomenon while sidestepping the child sexual abuse allegations that permanently altered his public standing...

Tom Perrotta joins us to discuss Ghost Town , his new novel about memory, grief, and the long pull of the past. The Election , Little Children , and The Leftovers author returns to familiar New Jersey ground in a story centered on Jimmy Perrini, a successful writer drawn back to the hometown and the formative loss he thought he had left behind. Perrotta will appear at the Brattle Theatre on Wednes...

For this month’s Wednesday Watch Party, Jared Bowen is joined by Callie Crossley, host of GBH’s Under the Radar with Callie Crossley , and Joyce Kulhawik, Emmy Award-winning arts and entertainment critic and president of the Boston Theater Critics Association , to revisit When Harry Met Sally , the 1989 romantic comedy that helped define the genre and is still shaping how movies talk about love, f...

Geoff Bennett , co-anchor and co-managing editor of PBS NewsHour , joins The Culture Show to discuss his new book, Black Out Loud: The Revolutionary History of Black Comedy from Vaudeville to ’90s Sitcoms . Bennett traces the long arc of Black comedy, from minstrelsy and vaudeville to Richard Pryor, In Living Color , and Living Single .  Alison Hoagland, professor emerita of historic preservation...

Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart was recently honored with the Third Lantern Award at Old North Church, recognizing his role in using music to connect civic life and shared memory. As the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, he joins The Culture Show to reflect on the power of orchestral music at historic moments.  Zara Anishanslin joins The Culture Show to talk through her latest book “Th...

On this edition of The Culture Show , Jared Bowen, 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 also on the Emerson faculty. H...

Keefer Glenshaw joins The Culture Show ahead of Intention / Desire , a collaborative 24-hour performance that begins at sunset on April 25 and runs through sunset on April 26 at the Berklee Loft in Boston. Glenshaw, a musician, performance artist, electric cellist, and founder of the rock band The Romance, talks about pushing performance to its limits and inviting audiences directly into the work....