The Culture Show Podcast

In his New Yorker essay “ What The Pitt Taught Me About Being a Doctor ,” Dhruv Khullar reflects on how the HBO drama captures the human strain of practicing medicine inside a broken health-care system. He joins The Culture Show to discuss why the show resonates — and what it reveals to him about his own work as a doctor. Dhruv Khullar, a contributing writer at “The New Yorker,” is a practicing ph...

Chef and restaurateur Paul Wahlberg joins The Culture Show   to talk about family, Dorchester roots, and the new Wahlburgers “Brothers’ Combo, ” a limited-time menu featuring signature burgers from Paul, Mark, and Donnie. He’ll also appear at a March 16 pop-up celebration at the original Wahlburgers restaurant in Hingham , with proceeds supporting the Boys & Girls Club of Dorchester. The Vinfe...

Shaina Taub made Broadway history as the first woman to win Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Original Score on her own, for the musical SUFFS . The show follows the suffragists’ hard-fought campaign for the 19th Amendment, bringing figures like Alice Paul, Ida B. Wells, and Mary Church Terrell to life onstage. Now, SUFFS comes to Boston’s Emerson Colonial Theatre from March 17 through March 29,...

Comedian and author Mark Malkoff joins The Culture Show to discuss his new book “Love Johnny Carson: One Obsessive Fan’s Journey to Find the Genius Behind the Legend.”  Drawing on hundreds of interviews with comedians, writers, and others connected to The Tonight Show , the book revisits Carson’s career, comic instincts, and the influence he continues to have on late-night television. The Tony Awa...

On this edition of The Culture Show , Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley, and Joyce Kulhawik, go over the week’s top arts and culture headlines. First up, Composer Philip Glass canceled the Kennedy Center debut of his new symphony “Lincoln,”  saying the institution’s current leadership conflicts with the work’s message. Now the BSO will give the piece its first performance this summer at Tanglewood. And...

The Tony Award–winning play “Stereophonic” drops audiences into a 1970s recording studio, where a rising rock band pushes toward greatness — and the breaking point. Now on national tour and heading to Boston, the play captures the obsession, tension, and creative friction behind making an album that could define careers. We speak with cast members Jack Barrett,  who plays Grover,  and actor Steven...

Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart is being honored with the Third Lantern Award at Old North Church, recognizing his role in using music to connect civic life and shared memory. As the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, he joins The Culture Show to reflect on the power of orchestral music at historic moments. Keith Lockhart will accept the award on April 16th at Old North Church. To learn...

Toni Morrison transformed American literature, reshaping narrative form and placing Black life at the center of her fiction with language both lyrical and unflinching. In her new book “ On Morrison ,” award-winning novelist and critic Namwali Serpell reexamines Morrison not just as a cultural icon, but as a daring literary architect whose innovations in time, voice, and structure changed what nove...

Astronaut Cady Coleman spent nearly six months aboard the International Space Station, contributing to scientific research while orbiting Earth more than 2,500 times. A chemist, Air Force officer, and NASA veteran, she helped expand the role of women in spaceflight during a pivotal era of exploration. In her book Sharing Space , she reflects on what life in orbit taught her about curiosity, collab...

In the late 1860s, Susan Dimock defied barriers that kept women out of medicine, earning her degree in Zurich after being rejected by Harvard Medical School and returning to Boston as a pioneering surgeon. Before her life was cut short in a shipwreck at 28, she helped reshape medical care for women and founded one of the nation’s first professional nursing training programs. Historian Susan Wilson...

Dennis Lehane, known for writing literary crime novels such as “Mystic River,” “Gone, Baby, Gone,” and “Shutter Island,” joins The Culture Show to talk about his latest collaboration with Apple TV+, the  crime series “Smoke.”  Created by Dennis Lehane, the nine-episode drama – inspired by true events – follows an arson investigator who teams up with a police detective to stop two serial arsonists....

First up, Sally Mann. In 2015 renowned photographer Sally Mann published her memoir “Hold Still,” an inquiry into family history, the American South and the nature of creativity. Now, comes her book  “Art Work: On the Creative Life.”  It is laugh-out-loud funny. It’s irreverent. And it’s refreshingly practical as she guides the reader through her experience and process of being an artist.  From th...

James Sullivan,  a journalist, author and longtime contributor to the Boston Globe, joins The Culture Show to talk about his book Which Side Are You On?: 20th Century American History in 100 Protest Songs . From there Aisha Muharrar joins The Culture Show to talk about her debut novel “Loved One.” She’s an Emmy Award–winning writer and producer who has worked on “Hacks,” “Parks” and “Recreation,”...

Author Gish Jen discusses her novel, “Bad Bad Girl.” In this witty and deeply personal work, Jen blends fiction and autobiography to imagine her mother’s life and explore the distance between them — uncovering how storytelling can bridge what family history leaves unsaid.  From there we’re joined by Sam Kissajukian. In 2021 the Aussie comedian quit stand-up, rented an abandoned cake factory, and b...

Pulitzer Prize–winning author Stephen Greenblatt joins The Culture Show , to talk about his latest book, “ Dark Renaissance:The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival .”  It traces the meteoric rise and violent end of Christopher Marlowe—playwright, poet, spy, and heretic—whose genius endures today.   From there, Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore ...

Robert Reich served  in three presidential administrations, including as Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton. As a professor he has been the ultimate explainer about rising inequality. As a public intellectual he pulls no punches–calling out the bullies:  anyone and any institution that threatens democracy and human decency.  It’s a life’s work on which he reflects in his book “Coming...

Christopher Castellani’s new novel “Last Seen” follows four young men who vanish on separate winter nights and find one another in the afterlife. The book blends elements of mystery with a meditation on identity, longing, and visibility, told through four distinct voices. Castellani joins The Culture Show to discuss why he chose to tell the story from the afterlife, and what these characters revea...

Today we’re putting on our warmest winter gear and bundling up for our Wednesday Watch Party — the show where we revisit the movies that shaped us, and ask if they still hold up. This month Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley and Joyce Kulhawik enter a snow globe of crime, manners, and very bad decisions by way of the Coen Brother’s 1996  “Fargo.”  A snow-covered noir where decency and depravity share th...

Joyce Linehan joins “The Culture Show” to reflect on the legacy of documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman. As Chief of Policy for Mayor Marty Walsh she was key to Wiseman’s documentary “City Hall,” which is  an expansive exploration of how Boston runs. Dell M. Hamilton, interim director of the Alain Locke Gallery of African & African American Art , joins us to discuss Renaissance, Race, and R...

After more than a decade as Executive Director and CEO of the Coolidge Corner Theatre, Katherine Tallman is stepping down. She reflects on expanding the Brookline art house, elevating its national profile, and guiding it through the shifts of streaming and the pandemic — reshaping what independents can be. To keep on top of all of Coolidge's programming go here . Ceramic artist Roberto Lugo blends...

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, the Winter Olympics delivered medals — and meltdowns. Norway’s biathlon star Sturla Holm Lægreid hijacked headlines with a tearful on-air confession about cheating on his girlfriend, while ski jumping faced a surreal scandal dubbed “Penis-gate,” with al...

Actor Alan Cumming returns to the show fresh off receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The Tony, Emmy, BAFTA, and Olivier Award winner talks about being a buck naked vegan, the runaway success of his reality series “The Traitors,” now the most-watched unscripted streaming program, and who he thinks is a traitor to American values. British singer-songwriter Billy Bragg joins us with his n...

Last spring, the Louvre looked untouchable, with a couture exhibition and a grand renovation plan led by director Laurence des Cars. Then came a cascade of crises, including a brazen jewel heist that stole $100 million in French Crown Jewels, along with strikes and a damning security audit. Journalist Elaine Sciolino joins us to discuss the turmoil. Elaine Sciolino is the former Paris bureau chief...

The MFA recently announced layoffs and voluntary buyouts to close a projected $13-million budget gap. Pierre Terjanian, the Ann and Graham Gund Director and CEO of the Museum of Fine Arts, joins us on what drove the cuts and what they mean for the museum’s next chapter. Filmmaker and novelist John Sayles is back with “Crucible,” a new historical novel set in Henry Ford’s early-20th-century Detroit...

Filmmaker Harry Lighton joins us to discuss his debut feature Pillion , a darkly funny and tender look at a relationship shaped by power, trust, and BDSM. The film premiered at Cannes, where it won Best Screenplay, and stars Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling. Lighton will appear in person tonight at 7:00 p.m. at the Coolidge Corner Theatre for a screening, Q&A and to receive the Coolidge B...