The Culture Show Podcast

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....

With so much attention on Paris for the Olympics, many of us have a longing  to be in The City of Light.  But there is another way to make that French connection –  by way of George and Ira Gershwin’s musical, “An American in Paris.” Part of Reagle Music Theatre’s 55th season, it’s onstage August 9th through the 18th.  The  Elliot Norton award-winning Rachel Bertone –  Reagle Music Theatre’s Artis...

 Kamala Harris is on the verge of making history –again–by becoming the first Black woman to serve as a major party's presidential candidate. And she will be the first to acknowledge that her political path was paved by those who fought for racial justice and civil rights. Imari Paris Jeffries, President and CEO of Embrace Boston joins us to talk about  how Martin Luther King Jr.  has made this mo...

The documentary film, “The Queen of Versailles,”  is a rags to riches to rags story  about one of America’s most opulent couples – David Siegel and his wife Jacqueline – and their  quest to build the largest private home in America,  Named Versailles, it’s modeled after the French palace.  Now it is musical, making its pre-Broadway world premiere at Emerson Colonial Theatre. Starring Kristin Cheno...

 Today Jared Bowen, Edgar B. Herwick III and Culture Show contributor Joyce Kulhawik go over the latest headlines on our arts and culture week-in-review. First up, the pop culture response to the presidential race, and the puzzle it presents: is it life imitating art, or art imitating life when it comes to HBO’s Veep? The satirical series  following Selina Meyers’ political path from VP to Preside...

 A two hour romp through history  considers all  of America’s first ladies and  their varied roles  over the decades.  Titled “46  Plays for America’s First Ladies,” The Hub Theatre Company’s production is a “pay-what-you-can" that also includes, a voter registration drive will be held in conjunction with this production. Lauren Elias,  Hub Theatre Company founder and producing artistic director j...

Michael C. Thorpe is a storyteller. Using bright colors, textures and geometric shapes, he literally stitches them together to figuratively stitch together scenes from  everyday life. He has the eye and instinct of a painter  who uses the art and tradition of quilt making. Now his quilted masterpieces are on view in his solo exhibition at the Fuller Craft museum, it’s titled  “Michael C. Thorpe. H...

Over the last four years, British Consul General of New England Peter Abbott OBE has represented the UK in a number of  incredible moments –from the Prince and Princess of Wales’s visit to Boston for the Earthshot prize, to the coronation  of King Charles. Along the way he has traveled  across New England to promote trade and political alliances. Last winter, in a true display of diplomacy, he was...

NALEDI is a vocalist, composer and  educator from Johannesburg, South Africa.  Her music is grounded in Jazz, the church, and her heritage.  Her  dreams of studying music in the United States were realized when she landed a  full scholarship to New England Conservatory.  Then, after receiving a prestigious Kennedy Center Artist in Residence honor, her career took off with performances at storied v...

Today Edgar B. Herwick III, Henry Santoro and Lisa Simmons go over the latest headlines on our arts and culture week-in-review. First up, the Emmy nominations are out–again.   We’ll look at the surprises, snubs and snoozers. From there it is an epic loss  of TV personalities and stars, from Bob Newhart, who managed to play  unassuming characters while stealing the show, to the self-proclaimed “Clo...

LaToya Hobbs is a painter and a printmaker whose themes are expressions of motherhood, home and cultural identity. While she often reveals her experiences as an artist and an African American woman, her work also has universal resonance. Her  monumental series, “Carving Out Time”  is  both personal and utterly relatable.  And it’s massive. She joined The Culture Show ahead of her debut exhibition...

The Grammy Award-winning Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) led by conductor Gil Rose releases Vijay Iyer: Trouble on its eponymous label. Marking his debut recording as an orchestral composer, he joins The Culture Show to talk about this work.  In his new book, “Baseball: The Movie,”   sportswriter and film critic Noah Gittell takes us through  the history of  the baseball movie, with a look...

The Million Year Picnic is the oldest comic book store in New England and since the 1970’s it’s been a fixture in Harvard Square. This summer it marks its 50th anniversary. Tony Davis, the owner,  joins  The Culture Show to talk about its legacy and how they are marking this moment. Then we’re off  to Lowell by way of their annual folk festival, which features  a mariachi band, parades, a yo-yo-wo...

Kneecap, a Belfast-based rap group known for their fiery social and political commentary is on the rise…with a new album and biopic starring Michael Fassbender, which has it’s nationwide release on August 2nd. They join us to talk about it all. From there it’s the return of BosTix, the discount theater ticket kiosk. Catherine Peterson, Executive Director of ArtsBoston joins The Culture Show to tal...

Today on The Culture Show, co-hosts Edgar B. Herwick III, Callie Crossley and James Bennett II go over the latest headlines on our arts and culture week-in-review. First up:  D is for dismal. The report card is in for the world’s orchestras and they get a capital D on diversity. Then it’s a capital F for flop. Kevin Costner’s “Horizon: An American Saga,”  bombs at the box office. Plus we remember...

In her book, Muppets in Moscow, Natasha Lance Rogoff pulls back the iron curtain on what it was like to work in Russia as a TV producer in the 1990’s.  There were absolute triumphs of Big Bird diplomacy,  moments when capitalism collided with the legacy of communism, and a deep realization that a country undergoing radical change, can only change so much .  Then  it’s a  conversation about music a...