The Culture Show Podcast

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...

Quilling is the ancient art of coiling long strips of paper around a needle–or  going back to its namesake– around a quill.  In a twist of fate, Huong Wolf has ended up  on a mission to keep this tradition alive. Today she  and her husband  run the Framingham-based business, Quilling Card, a fair trade company that sells handcrafted cards–and now handcrafted art. She joins The Culture Show to talk...

What is a  prescription for anxiety or isolation that doesn't need FDA approval and won’t get churned through big pharma to drive up prices?  Art and culture. Known as “social prescriptions,”  there is a growing movement of physicians writing out prescriptions for dance classes, nature walks or a trip to the museum as a way to help treat mental and behavioral health concerns. Now Massachusetts is...

Ben Shattuck’s latest book, “The History of Sound: Stories”  is a collection of interconnected stories that examine the lives and landscapes of New England where Shattuck spans centuries in these haunting and often humorous stories. He joins “The Culture Show” ahead of his event at Harvard Book Store. And, it might be  “Shark Week” on the Discovery Channel, but on The Culture Show, it’s “Jumping t...

Today on The Culture Show, The play “Fat Ham.”  It’s a modern-day adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, where the court of Denmark is transported to a backyard barbecue in the South, but the most radical change is the sublimation of Shakespeare’s epic tragedy into an uproarious comedy.   Playwright James Ijames won a Pulitzer for Fat Ham in 2022.  We caught up with him when Fat Ham was onstage in Bo...

Coming up on The Culture Show…. We are steeped in American history, starting with  the Boston Tea Party.  Fed up with the tyranny of taxation without representation, American colonists  took matters into their own hands–literally: tossing three shiploads of tea into Boston Harbor. The theatrics alone  made it one of  THE most celebrated rebellions. But to understand the true ideals and motivations...

Will Dailey is an independent recording artist, performer and artist advocate. He’s won numerous Boston Music awards, including best album and best artist. He’s shared the stage and studio  with some of the greats, such as Eddie Vedder, Willie Nelson and Brandi Carlile. Now he has a new gig: elevating other artists and musicians  As artist-in-residence at the Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport, he c...

Poetry often has a stigma that’s hard to shake. That it’s inscrutable, elite and out of reach. Even with the rhyming. And brevity.  But give poetry a chance, explore its roots, its history of experimentation and the beauty of its language and it comes alive. This is what Elisa New has done with “Poetry in America,” the PBS series. She joins The Culture Show to talk about its latest season. Elisa N...

“What to the American slave is your Fourth of July?”  That is the question Frederick Douglass posed to an audience of abolitionists at an event commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It was July 5, 1852 in Rochester, New York. In that speech, Douglass confronted the hypocrisy of a day celebrating freedom in a country that still endorsed the forced labor and bondage of more t...

Mfoniso Udofia. Frustrated as an actor when she didn’t see roles reflecting her or her reality, she picked up the pen, and never let go. In total she wrote a nine-play cycle chronicling three generations of a Nigerian-American family. Now a coalition of local theaters and arts organizations are putting on  a two-year festival celebrating and producing these works. Then, it’s a casting conundrum. I...

 Danza Orgánica, a Boston-based dance company, has been collaborating with members of the Aquinnah Wampanoag in a performance that explores   the indigenous people of two islands, Martha’s Vineyard and Puerto Rico, and what the two cultures have in common. Titled, “We Still Dance,”  it is a  multimedia theatrical performance, making its Boston Premiere this Saturday in a free performance at MassAR...