The Culture Show Podcast

Actor and author Marianne Leone joins The Culture Show to talk about her latest book,  “Five-Dog Epiphany: How a Quintet of Badass Bichons Retrieved Our Joy,”  which details how she and her husband, the actor Chris Cooper, have been able to come to terms with the death of their teenage son with the help of their canine companions. From there, The  Culture Show’s James Bennett II takes us to Cambri...

Pulitzer Prize-winner Sebastian Smee, art critic for The Washington Post, and author of “The Art of Rivalry” joins The Culture Show for a discussion of his new book “Paris in Ruins: Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism.”  From there Gloucester Stage Company and Teatro Chelsea are collaborating on “The Hombres,” in honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month. Actor Jaime José Hernández who stars...

Today we bring you three very different takes on Baseball.   First up.  from a diamond in the rough to the baseball diamond. Toni Stone made history as the first woman to play professional baseball in the mens’ Negro League. It’s the subject of Lydia Diamond’s latest play. From there it’s sportswriter and film critic Noah Gittell. In his new book  he merges two American pastimes: baseball and movi...

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 Experience” From there, it’s award-winning pastry chef Joanne Chang. She joins us wi...

Turn up the volume because we have three takes on music, from Bob Dylan to Cole Porter to populist punk. First up, the Irish dramatist Conor McPherson wrote and directed a play incorporating 20 songs by Bob Dylan.  This is no JukeBox musical. And though it is set in Dylan’s hometown of Duluth, Minnesota it’s no bio-musical either.  It’s titled “Girl From the North Country.” He joins us to talk abo...

Summertime, and the living is easy. Or, if you’re Audra McDonald, you make it look and sound easy.  The award winning singer and actor earned her fifth – of a record-breaking six – Tony awards for her portrayal of Bess in the Broadway hit “The Gershwins Porgy and Bess,”  which was mounted right here at The American Repertory Theater. Jared Bowen caught up with McDonald when she was in Boston for a...

Today on The Culture Show ,  P Carl.  He built  a life as a queer woman. But all the while he had a yearning to become more fully realized. For him that meant transitioning to another gender. He wrote about  it in his 2020 memoir, “Becoming a Man,” which he adapted for the stage in a play that made its world premier at the American Repertory Theater.  From there it’s multi-media, artist  Miranda J...

Today on The Culture Show ,  the one-man media conglomerate: Matt Farley.  For him quality IS quantity. The Danvers based singer-songwriter is prolific. He’s written, produced and recorded more than 25,000 songs. He also makes movies, hosts  podcasts and writes books.  Then, It’s music to environmentalists’ ears. We check in with Adam Gardner. The  lead singer of Guster is also leading the way to...

First up, after months of speculation about divorce,  Bennifer is over, again.  The highly publicized rollercoaster  of a romance that’s  spanned decades has its own wikipedia entry, there are numerous analyses breaking down their breakups, legal experts weighing  in on the potential financial fallout….so what does our  fascination with the on again off again relationship between Ben Affleck and J...

Judy Collins, the Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter is bringing her unmistakable, ethereal voice, and her legendary repertoire to Tanglewood.. Ahead of her performance, she joins The Culture Show to talk about her landmark 1967 album, “Wildflowers,” her  2022 studio album of original material titled ”Spellbound,” and her fight for social and environmental justice. From there we enter the unse...

In the 1970’s photographer  Jack Lueders-Booth  went to MCI Framingham, the women’s prison, to teach the incarcerated photography. He transformed a vacant wing of the prison, building darkrooms…and a community. During his nearly 10 years there he collaborated with the women who lived in the prison;  teaching technique, learning their stories and making a series of color Polaroid images. They numbe...

Filmmaker Jason Pollard joins The Culture Show to talk about his latest documentary.  “Old Dirty Bastard: A Tale of Two Dirtys,” which premieres on A&E on august 25th.  This authorized biography looks at the life, career and legacy of  Russel Tyrone Jones, AKA, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, the founding member of Wu-Tang Clan. From there Edgar B. Herwick III and producer Kate Dellis take us to a place th...

By day Roxbury rapper Cakeswagg is a theater teacher working with youth,  by night, she puts her theatrical skills to use, assuming the larger-than-life  alter ego, Cakeswagg. Fresh off Boston Calling,  her sophomore album, “Michelin Star” drops this week. She joins us for a pre-release party, performing some of her  new tracks.  From there,  Dream Role Players gives actors an opportunity to play...

Today on The Culture Show co-hosts Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley and Edgar B Herwick III go over the latest headlines. First up, a rallying cry for political rallies.  Musicians are sick of the same old tune, having to threaten politicians with legal action  for using their music as a soundtrack for their own political ambitions–without permission. Celine Dion and the estate of Issac Hayes are just...

Kate Pierson, an original member of the B-52’s, also has a solo career, which  includes an upcoming album, “Radios and Rainbows.” Though it will be released next month, you can get a preview at the 20th annual Cape Cod Jazz & Arts Festival on August 21st where she will be debuting her new material. She joins us to talk about her upcoming show, discovering the ocean as a Cape Cod resident, and...

In 1838 Angelina Grimké made delivered a groundbreaking speech to the Massachusetts Legislature  demanding the  immediate end of the slave trade. This was the first time in US history that a woman had addressed a legislative body.  Now this history has been brought to life in the play “ A Light Under the Dome,” which is staged where it all took place:  at the Massachusetts State House. This, along...

Fifty years ago  a federal court forced Boston to desegregate its schools with busing. Known as the Boston busing crisis, it was fraught with racism and violence and it tore the city apart.  To take stock of this anniversary, Imari Paris Jeffries, president and CEO of Embrace Boston, joins us  to look at the role that Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King played in fighting for school des...

At The London offices of Pierpoint & Company there is still the residue of the old boys' network on the trading floor where  backs are stabbed, fortunes are made as quickly as they're lost and hedonism abounds. This is the fictional investment bank depicted in HBO’s workplace drama “Industry, ” which both romanticizes and rebukes the world of finance.  Actor Ken Leung is central to the show’s...

Today on the Culture Show co-hosts Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley and Edgar B. Herwick III take on the latest headlines on out arts and culture week-in-review,  First up, So much for sacking the Sacklers. Though dozens upon dozens of institutions have severed ties with the Sacklers because of their ties to the opioid epidemic, the family still has a hold on Harvard. After a long review, the universi...

Today on The Culture Show we preview The Mission Hill Arts Festival Saturday event. Executive Curator and organizer Luisa Harris joins us for an overview. We’re also joined by featured artist, Ivanna Cuesta who is a Dominican jazz drummer and composer. She’ll be  performing compositions from her new album  “A Letter To The Earth.” Ivanna Cuesta, along with Max Ridley on bass and Fall Raye on sax,...

Reginald Dwayne Betts, who was incarcerated when he was 16,  is an award-winning  poet, a lawyer and founder of Freedom Reads, a first-of-its kind organization working to bring books into prisons.  Now in a first, Freedom Reads, along with  the National Book Foundation, and the Center for Justice Innovation, has  launched the “Inside Literary Prize,”  which is awarded exclusively by currently inca...

Germaine Jenkins has  made it her mission to do something about the food deserts in her native South Carolina. In 2014, she co-founded Fresh Future Farm  on a vacant city lot with $600 from a family tax refund. What thrives today is a food Oasis..  Her  ongoing fight for food justice is the focus of the documentary film “Rooted.”  She joins us ahead of a screening event at the Martha’s Vineyard Af...

Today on the Culture Show, after nearly 90 years, the giant sea monster, known as Morton, returns to Nantucket. Edgar B. Herwick III joins us live from the island with a play-by-play to rival Snoop Dogg’s sports commentary. From there it’s  The Indigo Girls –Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. They join us to talk about their artistic process, and the community they’ve built through their music ahead of th...

The Olympics - Should Snoop Dogg get a gold for bringing the party to Paris? If anyone has Joie De Vivre, it is he! From dancing with the gymnastics team to swimming with Micahel Phelps, to calling the badminton highlights – we look at what the celebrity correspondents are bringing to Olympics coverage. From there, the longtime local music venue Great Scott is getting a reboot after a COVID closur...

In his debut feature film,  Sean Wang  depicts the agonies of adolescence: alienation, awkwardness and angst.  You know, all the things we try to bury and never remember again. But Wang makes them visible and hilarious. Titled “DIDI,”  it’s the story of Chris, a 13-year old Taiwanese-American boy searching for belonging in suburban California – just as Facebook and MySpace are changing everything....