The Culture Show Podcast

Today on The Culture Show Imari Paris Jeffries, president and CEO of Embrace Boston, joins us for his monthly segment: “AI: Actual intelligence,”  where we tap into the most interesting thinkers in our region. Their insights and observations are totally original and algorithm free. Today Imari Paris Jeffries discusses President Biden commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 people and pardoning 39...

Tony award-winning musical  “Six,” in all of its exuberant defiance, reclaims history for Henry VIII’s six wives. Now the queendom reigns at Boston’s Emerson Colonial Theatre by way of Broadway in Boston. Today two of the queens  – Danielle Mendoza who stars as Anne of Cleves  and  Alizé Cruz  who stars as Catherine Howard –  join The Culture Show . Six is onstage through December 29th. To learn m...

Today on The Culture Show, Jared Bowen, Edgar B. Herwick III, and Callie Crossley go over the latest headlines on our arts and culture week-in-review. First up this week is Luigi Mangione. As soon as his unmasked face was made public and once people knew the name of the suspected gunman who allegedly killed United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson – fandom flooded the internet and the memes followed....

Engelbert Humperdinck is a  multi-platinum legendary singer whose  “Last Waltz Farewell Tour,” lands at the Chevalier Theatre in Medford where he performs on December 12th. Engelbert Humperdinck's latest album  All About Love , is a collection of his own versions of some of some classic love songs.  He joins The Culture Show to talk about it all. From there we get a preview of Revolutionary Spaces...

The chamber ensemble Musicians of the Old Post Road is celebrating  the holiday season with “Christmas Far and Wide,” a concert of  festive 18th-century yuletide music from across the Western Hemisphere, making stops in Ireland, France, England. Poland, Mexico and more. They have two upcoming performances, one on December 14th at Trinity Lutheran in Worcester and another performance on December 15...

The United States Postal Service has announced a 2025 postage stamp honoring actress Betty White. The stamp , based on a 2010 photo of White, is a work by Massachusetts artist Dale Stephanos . As an illustrator his clients include “Rolling Stone,”  “Mad Magazine” and “The New York Times.” His work is exhibited in galleries across the country. Dale Stephanos joins The Culture Show to talk about his...

Two time Tony Award winner Christine Ebersole joins The Culture Show to preview “I'll Be Home For Christmas.”   By way of Broadway in Worcester, Christine Ebersole and Grammy Award winning pianist Billy Stritch will celebrate the holidays together in a show that  features the greatest hits of their twenty year partnership going all the way back to “42nd Street” on Broadway when they first met. “ I...

Today on The Culture Show Edgar B. Herwick III, James Bennett II and Lisa Simmons go over the latest headlines on our arts and culture week-in-review. First up, this week Mayor Wu announced that the city is expandin g its pilot program giving Boston students free access to select arts and culture institutions.  Starting in January, it’ll be offered to all Boston students, with more free days and e...

For over 25 years The Pipes of Christmas has been a cherished holiday event, performing concerts that celebrate  the Christmas season and the Celtic spirit. Next Thursday at Old South Church they will be making their Boston debut in a concert honoring Brian O’Donovan, and the holiday tradition he created: A Christmas Celtic Sojourn. Lindsay O’Donovan, the wife of Brian O’Donavan. She was central t...

Today, Mayor Michelle Wu  announced Boston Family Days, an expansion of the successful BPS Sundays pilot program, which gave Boston Public Schools students and their families free access to several cultural institutions throughout Boston. With today’s announcement, Mayor Wu has expanded this free access experience to include all Boston school-aged children K-12 and their families and three new cul...

Boston Pops Conductor Keith Lockhart joins The Culture Show for an overview of the Holiday Pops, which kicks off a series of concerts this Thursday December 5th. This year offers everything from the annual performance of  “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas,”  to  “ Home Alone” in Concert   to a  N ew Year’s Eve Celebration  with Bernadette Peters . To learn  about  the  Holiday Pops season go here...

HBO’s “ Somebody Somewhere ,”  drops us into Manhattan, Kansas where we meet Sam, a woman who has recently moved back to her hometown to care for her dying sister, and Joel, a colleague at her new workplace who, she learns, was in the high school choir with her. The Peabody Award-winning series is  wrapping up with its last episode streaming on HBO December 8th. Actor Jeff Hiller, who stars as Joe...

Ethan Hawke joins The Culture Show to talk about his latest film, “Wildcat,” which he directed and co-wrote. It’s about Flannery O’Conor– her imagination, her life and how illness instilled in her an unrelenting awareness of death. Hawke talks about what Flannery O’Conor means to him and what it means to be the face of Gen X. From there,  filmmaker Sean Wang. In his uproarious debut feature film,...

Today on the Culture Show we have a show about food, tradition and culture. First up, writer Raj Tawney.  Growing up in a multicultural household,  his coming of age story happened in the kitchen, helping his mother and grandmother cook recipes from their homelands.  Themes of food, memory and identity  come together  in his  memoir, “A Colorful Palate: A Flavorful Journey through a Mixed American...

The Handel and Haydn Society  has been  performing Messiah every year since 1854. This year there’s a new component: Artistic Director Jonathan Cohen is introducing CitySing which unites 121 musicians on the Symphony Hall stage to perform Messiah November 29th through December 1st. He, along with Steven Marquardt, principal trumpet player, joined The Culture Show for a preview and performance. Fro...

Annette Gordon-Reed is renowned for her groundbreaking work on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. She was the first Black person awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History. She was honored with MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships, and won the National Book Award for “The Hemingses of Monticello.” Jared Bowen recently caught up with her to talk about her latest book, “On Juneteenth,” at the GBH studi...

Today Culture Show contributor Joyce Kulhawik joins us for our recurring feature, Stage and Screen Time–a look at the latest movies and plays in theaters now. 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 . From there, Culture Show contributor independent curator Pedro Alo...

Today Culture Show co-hosts Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley and Edgar B. Herwick III go over the latest headlines on our arts and culture week-in-review. First up, Boston University suspends admissions its PhD programs in the humanities and social sciences. From there  something to sing about, Charlestown Rehearsal Studios, home to hundreds of musicians, will stay open and operational  And, something...

Steven Maler, Founding Artistic Director of Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, joins The Culture Show to talk about  their upcoming production of  Charles Dickens’  “A Christmas Carol ,”  and how they hope this will become a new holiday tradition. The production is onstage December 8th through December 22nd at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre. It stars Will Lymon as Ebenezeer Scrooge, it’s direc...

Something Wicked this way comes in many iterations. First, as the 1995 widely acclaimed book by Gregory Maguire , “ Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West ,”  then as an entire “Wicked”  series, which Maguire has been authoring since 2003, with a forthcoming book to be published next year titled “ Elphie: A  Wicked Childhood .”  Along the way “Wicked” has been  adapted to a Ton...

The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Andris  Nelsons will lead a program featuring world renowned soprano Renée Fleming and baritone Rod Gilfry in “The Brightness of Light”  on November 21, 22 and 23 . This BSO co-commission  is a song cycle based on the letters between painter Georgia O’Keefe and photographer Alfred Stieglitz. It’s composed by Kevin Puts. The program also includes two pieces by Mozart...

Last month Orville Peck played to a sold out show in MGM’s Music Hall. Culture Show host and Executive Arts Editor Jared Bowen caught up with him ahead of his performance to talk about his path to country music, what it’s like to be regarded as country music’s most mysterious outlaw and his latest album “Stampede,”  which includes a duet with Willie Nelson about gay cowboy love. From there Christo...

Today on The Culture Show, co-hosts Jared Bowen, Edgar B. Herwick III and Callie Crossley go over the latest headlines on our arts and culture week-in-review.  First up: The Grammy nominations are out. They’ll go over the snoozers, snubs and surprises. From there they’ll remember Boston’s own jazz giant Roy Haynes. The  pioneering drummer who earned the nickname "Snap Crackle" died this week at ag...

Fresh off his Best Actor Oscar win for Oppenheimer , Cillian Murphy produces and stars in the quiet, contemplative, and powerful film “Small Things Like These.” Based on the book by Claire Keegan, “ Small Things Like These ”  is set in 1985, in a small Irish village just before Christmas. The protagonist, Bill Furlong, played by Murphy, is a devoted husband and father to five daughters. A coal mer...

Imari Paris Jeffries, President and CEO of Embrace Boston, joins The Culture Show to talk about his reflections on the 2024 election results. He also recaps Embrace Boston’s 2024 Arts and Culture Summit and he and Jared Bowen share their experiences of both being featured performers in the Huntington Theatre’s production of “ Nassim .”  From there, longtime journalist Carmen Fields joins us to tal...