The Culture Show Podcast

He contains multitudes: an actor, singer, writer– a bon vivant with boundless energy. That would be the Tony-Award winning Alan Cumming. It’s impossible to typecast him: from performing Macbeth to Miley Cyrus. To starring on network television by way of The Good Wife, populating public Television as the host of our own Masterpiece Mystery. And now he’s the saucy star of streaming–on Peacock, hosti...

Sarah and Angelina Grimke are admired in American history for rejecting their privileged lives on a plantation in  the south to become activists in the North. Their  pamphlets evangelizing anti-slavery were among the most influential of the antebellum era. They are still read today. What also endures was an omission from the Grimkes’ family portrait: their Black relatives. That was until Tufts Uni...

Today on The Culture Show : Lights. Camera . Action. This Wednesday the Coolidge Corner Theatre is opening its new 14,000 square foot addition to the public.  After Fifteen years of planning, 10 years of fundraising and two years of construction, this is a mega makeover  with a renovated lobby, two state-of-the-art theaters and a refurbished concession stand. At a time when other movie theaters ar...

First up, we mark the 34th anniversary of the Gardner Museum theft. It’s the ultimate whodunnit in the world of art heists, with the stolen works valued at hundreds of millions of dollars. AND, with a 10 million dollar reward on the table, the tip hotline never goes cold. Then, in the land down under, women rule and men’s egos are torn asunder–at least one man felt diminished when he was denied en...

What happens when you mix Sting’s greatest hits with the power of hip-hop dance? You get “Message in a Bottle.” It’s a fusion dreamed up by Kate Prince, one of England’s most acclaimed choreographers…resulting in a production that addresses the international refugee crisis. And told from the point of view of a family displaced by civil war. Prince joins us ahead of the show’s New England premiere...

Growing up in Venezuela, artist Miguel Braceli could not express queer love. Today he’s in Provincetown, wrapping up an artist residency program at the Fine Arts Work Center and he’s working to put queer love on the map. Literally. As part of his multi-pronged art project, Braceli has been crowdsourcing stories about finding love in P-Town…using people’s recollections to create a large-scale art i...

In the play “Cost of Living,” now onstage in Boston, four characters find themselves isolated from society–cut off by poverty, by physical disabilities and by an armor of defensiveness that makes the cost of living exponentially more exacting. It’s a soul-stirring play that explores the longing for human connection. I’ll be sitting down with two of the show’s stars. From there it’s two takes on Am...

August Wilson’s monumental Century Cycle is a collection of 10 dramas chronicling the black experience in America, one set during each decade of the 20th century. King Hedley II, number nine in the series, is a powerful, gritty and gripping play about an ex-convict trying to rebuild himself and his community all the while the ghosts of the past haunt him. Actor Naheem Garcia, stars in the play as...

Coming up, it’s our arts and culture Week in Review. First up, could Governor Healey be giving new meaning to Taxachusetts? By proposing a live theater tax credit the Bay State could become a breeding ground for Broadway. From there, can you really turn the clock back on TikTok? Even if the US Government bans the social media platform, we’ll look at how TikTok has been THE ultimate influencer. Cha...

Vocalist Katherine Goforth. When she came out as a transgender woman and transitioned, she wasn’t sure if she would ever work in opera again. Opera can be conventional and conservative and gender roles are traditionally defined by the performer’s voice. So what does it mean to be a female tenor who wants to play female roles? Having found her voice, that’s what Katherine Goforth is finding out. An...

What is it like to travel the world as a blind person–navigating different cultures, traditions and transportation systems? That’s what Dr. Mona Minkara explores in her travel documentary series, “Planes, Trains and Canes.” After losing her sight, Minkara came to believe that vision is more than sight. And her vision has been to reimagine the travel show by highlighting stories of people who have...

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.” Set in 1934, the Dylan songs upon which McPherson draws convey the desperation and existential aching of Depression-era America. With the Br...

Oppenheimer was the bomb at last night's Oscars, winning seven awards including best picture, best actor and best director. Joyce Kulhawik and Lisa Simmons are here for an Oscars recap, going through all the slights, stunners and the usual suspects. And, in August 1969, as many as half a million people gathered at a farm in upstate New York to hear music. What happened was more than a concert. It...

Coming up on The Culture Show, it’s our Arts and Culture Week-in-Review First up, could the State House become more of an art house? Governor Maura Healey has signed an executive order creating a culture advisory council to find ways to cultivate the Commonwealth’s arts and culture sector. Plus, RuPaul is running on all four cylinders with a book bus touring the country, delivering LGBTQ plus book...

From Abigail Adams, to grandmothers, to the brains that made breakthroughs in science, we’re marking Women’s History Month with the monuments and murals in Boston memorializing women. Julia Swanson of the Art Walk Project leads the way. From there, is A Midsummer Night’s Dream the perfect Shakespeare starter play? With a romantic tangle, an enchanted forest ruled by fairies, a Donkey and late nigh...

What should reparations in Boston look like? A new report from Embrace Boston suggests that repairing generations of inequality and inequity will take more than monetary amends. It will take a wholesale and holistic approach, which includes amplifying and integrating Black History, black representation and the Black Boston of today into the arts and culture landscape. Imari Paris Jeffries, Preside...

Coming up on The Culture Show : scaling down Ibsen’s sprawling five act play to a mere 75 minutes. That’s the challenge writer, director and composer Bill Barclay took on when the Boston Symphony Orchestra commissioned him to downsize Peer Gynt, a giant of a play with incidental music composed by Edvard Grieg . This adaptation premiered at the BSO in 2017, now Barclay is back with an updated versi...

Father Columba Stewart. He is a Benedictine monk and scholar who travels the most volatile parts of the world to rescue and protect ancient documents. As we continue our series of conversations with the people on the frontlines of conflict zones saving art, culture and heritage sites from ruin, Father Columba joins us to talk about his mission. From there it’s the battle of the book. The Boston Pu...

“The Band's Visit” is one of the most captivating musicals about…nothing. The Tony-winning show follows the adventures of a touring Egyptian band stranded in an Israeli village. With nowhere for the musicians to stay, the locals take them in for the night. The overriding sentiment of “The Band’s Visit” is captured in the song Something Different: Quote, “Nothing is as beautiful as something that y...

We cross into the underworld by way of “Eurydice.” It’s a hell raising opera, truly. With music by Matthew Aucoin and based on the play “Eurydice,” by Sarah Ruhl, it’s a retelling of the myth of Orpheus, from the perspective of his bride. In this adaptation we follow Eurydice’s descent into the underworld, where her encounters are humorous, and heartbreaking–especially when she reunites with her f...

Understanding American history means knowing Black history. And in Boston, that history has been made more visible by way of the African American Trail Project. Tufts University professor Kerri Greenidge joins us to talk about what went into mapping historic African-American sites in Boston and beyond. From there, it’s into the wild world of artist Raqib Shaw. He uses porcupine quills and enamel t...

Coming up on The Culture Show: does Washington have policy down to a fine art? The White House convened its first-ever arts summit, working with artists and arts organizations on how the arts can enrich society–from public spaces to public discourse. Mary Grant, President of MassArt was there. She joins us for her take on that and more. From there, for Boston-based architect Daniel Steger, the phr...

When Reginald Dwayne Betts was 16 years old, he was an honors student. He was also arrested for carjacking. Prosecuted as an adult, he spent eight years in a Virginia prison, existing among grown up men. What got him through those years behind bars? Books. Betts left prison a poet; he then became an Ivy League-educated Lawyer and now he’s on a mission to bring libraries into prisons with a first-o...

It’s our arts and culture week in review. Beyonce does the Texas two step onto the country music charts, landing the top spot with her hit “Texas Hold Em. And despite his pathology of antisemitism, racism and homophobia, the artist formerly known as Kanye West makes a controversial chart-topping comeback with his latest album. And, some speculate that the song Hotel California is a metaphor for pr...

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. On Tuesday she returns to Boston in a one-night-only engagement at...