The Culture Show Podcast

Providence-based six-piece Sharks Come Cruisin’ joined The Culture Show with their sea-shanty-driven sound, drawing on maritime music, group singing, and an instrument lineup that includes guitar, bass, banjo, fiddle, accordion, and melodica. The band also hosts the regular PVD Shanty Sing at The Parlour in Providence on May 8 and has a duo set at Aidan’s Pub in Bristol on May 10 .  A century afte...

Actor Bob Odenkirk and writer Derek Kolstad reunite after the Nobody films for Normal , a twisted neo-Western about a bank robbery that shatters the facade of a seemingly quiet small town. They join us ahead of the film’s theatrical release this Friday, April 17. To learn more, go here . At Harvard’s Houghton Library, Thanks for Typing brings long-overlooked women’s labor out of the margins and in...

Historian and bestselling author Timothy Snyder joins The Culture Show to discuss how democracies weaken, how authoritarianism rises, and what freedom actually requires. Snyder, the inaugural Temerty Chair in Modern European History at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto, will be honored on April 26 at the Literary Lights Gala .  Boston Youth Poet Lau...

On this edition of The Culture Show , Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley, and Joyce Kulhawik, go over the week’s top arts and culture headlines, which include: CBS is handing Stephen Colbert’s late-night slot to Byron Allen, marking a sharp change in tone. Colbert made the show a home for biting political comedy; Allen brings a broader, more mainstream style. “The Drama,”  starring Zendaya and Robert Pa...

Cady Coleman joins The Culture Show to discuss Artemis II, NASA’s first crewed lunar flyby in more than 50 years, and what the mission represents for the future of deep-space exploration. She reflects on the ambition, risk, and sense of shared purpose that still make a moon mission feel like a true moonshot. Coleman is a retired NASA astronaut, U.S. Air Force colonel, scientist, pilot, and musicia...

Regie Gibson, the inaugural Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, joins The Culture Show as part of our ongoing celebration of National Poetry Month. A poet, performer, and educator, he discusses bringing poetry off the page and into public life. Jade Wheeler joins The Culture Show to discuss Who Is Eartha Mae? , her one-woman play with music about Eartha Kitt that moves beyond the i...

Nineteen-time Grammy winner Béla Fleck joins The Culture Show ahead of his April 18 performance at The Cabot in Beverly with harpist Edmar Castañeda and drummer Antonio Sánchez. He talks about musical risk, unlikely combinations, and a career that has taken the banjo from bluegrass to jazz, classical music, and beyond.  Richard Hayden, Senior Director of Horticulture at New York’s High Line, joins...

Elaine Sciolino, former New York Times Paris bureau chief and the author of six books, joins The Culture Show to revisit  her 1982 interview with Ali Khamenei, conducted years before he became Iran’s supreme leader, and to reflect on what that encounter reveals now about Iran, power, and history. Her latest book, “Adventures in the Louvre: How to Fall in Love with the World’s Greatest Museum,”  is...

On this edition of The Culture Show , Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley, and Lisa Simmons, go over the week’s top arts and culture headlines. First up, Italian authorities are searching for four masked thieves who stole a Renoir, a Cézanne, and a Matisse from the Magnani-Rocca Foundation outside Parma in a raid that took less than three minutes. The theft, valued at about $10.3 million, has renewed con...

Award-winning actor, director, singer-songwriter and bestselling author David Duchovny joins The Culture Show to discuss “ About Time: Poems ,” a collection that reflects on love, family, aging, and the shifting nature of time.  From there Molly Schwartzburg joins The Culture Show to talk about Edward Gorey and how Harvard’s Houghton Library has acquired never before seen Gorey illustrations. Thes...

Poet Robert Pinsky joins The Culture Show to kick off National Poetry Month with a look at PoemJazz at Regattabar, where poetry and live music meet. The next edition, “ Misrule Music ,” is April 12 and shares its title with Pinsky’s new poem in the April issue of "The Atlantic." Chef Jason Santos discusses “ Citrus & Salt ,” his new cookbook inspired by the flavors of his Fort Point restaurant...

Ibram X. Kendi joins The Culture Show to discuss his latest book “ Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age .” The National Book Award-winning author examines how replacement theory gained political force and how it has been used to justify fear, exclusion, and authoritarian power. Ibram X. Kendi is the Carter G. Woodson Endowed Chair in History at Howard University where he is also a...

Retired FBI agent Geoffrey Kelly joins The Culture Show to discuss “Thirteen Perfect Fugitives: The True Story of the Mob, Murder, and the World’s Largest Art Heist.” After 22 years chasing leads through Boston’s criminal underworld, Kelly reflects on the missing art, the long investigation, and the toll of living inside one of the city’s most enduring mysteries. We preview Berklee’s “Mambo Mania:...

On this edition of The Culture Show, Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley, and James Parker, staff writer at The Atlantic, go over the week’s top arts and culture headlines: Twenty years after Hannah Montana premiered, Disney is marking the anniversary with a new special celebrating the show and the fandom that never let go.  After 50 years of turning American politics and celebrity into live comedy, Satu...

John Adams’s Nixon in China turned a geopolitical spectacle into something stranger, sharper, and more human. Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson join the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall to reprise Pat and Richard Nixon in scenes from the opera, with performances March 26 through 28. To learn more go here . The documentary “ André Is an Idiot ” begins with a terrible mistake — putting off...

Mahesh Daas, president of Boston Architectural College, joins The Culture Show to discuss resilient architecture and what California’s wildfire recovery can teach the rest of us about building safer homes. Legendary guitarist Reeves Gabrels, known for his work with David Bowie and The Cure, joins choreographer My’Kal Stromile to discuss "The Leisurely Installation of a New Window," part of Boston...

Filmmaker Ken Burns joins The Culture Show to discuss “Henry David Thoreau,” the new three-part PBS documentary series that he executive produced, and to reflect on America at 250. The conversation  explores the larger questions of identity, democracy, and national meaning that have long run through Burns’ work. Henry David Thoreau premiers on March 30th on PBS. To learn more go here. As America a...

Republicans are advancing the SAVE Act, a bill that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote. Supporters frame it as election security, while critics warn it could block millions of eligible voters—raising new questions about access and  democracy. Imari Paris Jeffries, President and CEO of Embrace Boston and co-chair of Everyone 250, joins The Culture Show to talk about the SAV...

On this edition of The Culture Show, Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley, and Cristina Quinn  go over the week’s top arts and culture headlines, which include: ABC pulled a completed season of “The Bachelorette” just days before premiere after a leaked video showed star Taylor Frankie Paul assaulting her partner, collapsing what was meant to be a franchise reset. BTS returns with its first full-group alb...

In “The Antiquities,” playwright Jordan Harrison imagines a future looking back at humanity through the objects and technologies we leave behind. Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company, the play unfolds as a series of scenes across time that explore progress, memory, and how quickly our inventions become artifacts. Jordan Harris joins the culture show to talk about this work. To learn more about the...

This month’s Wednesday Watch Party revisits Martin Scorsese’s 1976 classic “Taxi Driver,”  a film that remains one of the most unsettling portraits of loneliness, alienation, and urban disillusionment in American cinema. Jared Bowen is joined by Callie Crossley and Mark Anastasio, Artistic Director of The Coolidge Corner Theatre, to ask whether Travis Bickle’s post-Vietnam America still holds up t...

Artist and musician Cliff Notez and  singer-songwriter and composer Gabriella Simpkins join “The Culture Show” for a preview of the We Black Folk Showcase, coming to Arts at the Armory in Somerville on Friday, March 20. Created by Cliff Notez, We Black Folk is a Boston movement opening up the idea of folk through song, roots music, poetry, and story. To learn more about the upcoming showcase go he...

Culture Show co-host Callie Crossley and Culture Show contributor Lisa Simmons, the Artistic and Executive Director of the Roxbury International Film Festival and program manager at Mass Cultural Council, join Jared Bowen for an Oscars recap. Writer Lynette D’Amico joins The Culture Show to discuss “Men I Hate: A Memoir in Essays,” a searching new book about marriage, gender, and identity. Drawing...

Boston Lyric Opera is reimagining Mahler’s "Song of the Earth as a fully theatrical experience, conceived and directed by Anne Bogart. Bogart joins The Culture Show with BLO General Manager and CEO Brad Vernatter to talk about this meditation on mortality, beauty, and farewell — and about the reopening of the company’s Opera + Community Studios in Fort Point, where the production runs March 20 thr...

On this edition of The Culture Show , Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley, and Cristina Quinn  go over the week’s top arts and culture headlines, which include: The Boston Symphony Orchestra says it will part ways with music director Andris Nelsons after the 2026–27 season, ending a 13-season run. His tenure brought Grammy-winning recordings, international recognition, and a major role in shaping the orc...