The Culture Show Podcast

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, In an era of bloated blockbusters, YouTuber Markiplier bypassed Hollywood entirely, writing, financing, and releasing his sci-fi horror film Iron Lung on his own — and turning a $3 million budget into more than $17 million at the box office. And, the bo...

Imari Paris Jeffries, President and CEO of Embrace Boston and a co-chair of Everyone 250 join us for our recurring segment “AI: Actual Intelligence.” This month we focus on his recent piece on the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., and if the Super Bowl can and should be non political. Composer Kevin Day and cellist Leo Eguchi, co founding artistic director of Sheffield Chamber Players, join us to...

Jeff Taylor, founder of Monster.com, joins us to talk about how the job search has changed — again. When Monster launched in 1994, it moved job listings out of newspaper classifieds and onto the internet. Now Taylor is back with a new platform, Boomband, and discusses job hunting in the age of bots, when software increasingly decides what gets seen and what doesn’t. Mary Grant, president of Massac...

Playwright Joshua Harmon joins us to talk about his new play, “We Had a World.” The work turns inward, following a playwright asked by his grandmother to write about their family — a request that opens up a fraught history of love, resentment, humor, and truth-telling across three generations. “We Had a World” is onstage at the Huntington Theatre Company from February 12 through March 15. Ball in...

What do MBTA service alerts sound like as show tunes? “T: An MBTA Musical” turns the daily frustrations of riding Boston’s transit system — delays, shuttle buses, and all — into a two-act musical that’s equal parts satire and love letter to riders. Composer and lyricist Mel Carubia and Cassandra West , Executive Producer of Infinite Rotary Productions join us to talk about the show’s return, now o...

On this edition of The Culture Show , Jared Bowen, Lisa Simmons, and Edgar B. Herwick III go over the week’s top arts and culture headlines. First up, Catherine O’Hara, the Emmy and Golden Globe winning actress who starred in films including Home Alone, Beetlejuice and numerous collaborations with Christopher Guest, has passed at age 71. Then, protest music and cultural backlash. Bruce Springsteen...

Donald Nally, founder and conductor of The Crossing , a Grammy-winning ensemble dedicated almost entirely to new music, joins The Culture Show ahead of their performance at Symphony Hall. The Crossing is joining the Boston Symphony Orchestra for a program exploring sacred music in the 21st century. The concert pairs David Lang’s “poor hymnal” with the Boston premiere of Carlos Simon’s “Good News M...

Today we’re hitting the snooze button 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 Edgar B. Herwick III are stuck in a time loop with “Groundhog Day.” Released in 1993, the Bill Murray comedy starts as a small-town farce and turns into something stranger and deeper: a romantic comedy...

Noelle Trent, President and CEO of the Museum of African American History in Boston and Nantucket, joins us as Black History Month marks its centennial—100 years since Carter G. Woodson launched Negro History Week. She joins us to discuss why this milestone matters now and to give an overview of the museum’s Black History Month programming. To learn more go here .   Bass-baritone Davóne Tines join...

After the White House ordered a sweeping review of exhibitions and interpretive text at the Smithsonian Institution, historians launched an unprecedented public documentation effort. Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian recruits volunteers to photograph artifacts, wall labels, and explanatory text across museums—creating a time-stamped, independent archive they call a “Crowd to Cloud” record. Co...

On this edition of The Culture Show , Culture Show co-hosts Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley and Edgar B. Herwick III go over the latest headlines on our arts and culture week-in-review. First up, awards season. The Oscar race is underway, with “Sinners” leading with 16 nominations and major snubs including “Wicked: For Good” and stars Paul Mescal and George Clooney. The Razzies roasted flops like “Sn...

Actress Claire Foy joins The Culture Show to talk about her latest film, “H Is for Hawk”, adapted from Helen Macdonald’s bestselling memoir. Known for performances defined by restraint and emotional precision, Foy reflects on inhabiting grief, solitude, and endurance in a story that unfolds through the training of a goshawk. “H is for Hawk ” opens in Boston area theaters this Friday.  Stephanie Th...

Culture Show contributor Joyce Kulhawik joins us for Stage and Screen , with her latest picks for what to see in theaters and cinemas right now. An Emmy Award–winning arts and entertainment reporter and President of the Boston Theatre Critics Association, you can read  Kulhawik’s reviews here . We continue our Michelin Guide series with Tracy Chang, chef and owner of PAGU in Central Square. Known...

Paul Salopek has spent more than a decade walking the globe on foot as part of the “Out of Eden Walk,” retracing ancient human migration routes from East Africa toward Tierra del Fuego. A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and National Geographic Explorer, Salopek joins us from Alaska, where he’s pausing for the winter before continuing his journey through the Americas. To read all of his reporting go...

Tracy K. Smith,  former U.S. Poet Laureate discusses her book “Fear Less: Poetry in Perilous Times” — an invitation to listen, reflect, and let poetry guide us through uncertainty.  Don Gillis and Ray Flynn join The Culture Show to discuss Gillis’ new book “ The Battle for Boston: How Mayor Ray Flynn and Community Organizers Fought Racism and Downtown Power Brokers .” On June 5th at 6:00 Don Gilli...

On this edition of The Culture Show, Culture Show co-hosts Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley and Edgar B. Herwick III go over the latest headlines on our arts and culture week-in-review. First up,  inaugural poet Amanda Gorman, who wrote a new poem for Renée Good — a Minneapolis poet and mother killed by a federal ICE agent — refusing to let her be reduced to a headline. Gorman’s poem turns grief into...

In “The First Eight: A Personal History of the Pioneering Black Congressmen Who Shaped a Nation,” Jim Clyburn revisits the lives of eight Black congressmen from South Carolina who served during Reconstruction, testing the meaning of representation in the aftermath of slavery. Drawing on history and his own decades in Congress, Clyburn  reflects on their legislative ambitions, the backlash they fac...

Now that the Michelin Guide has put Boston on the map, we’re kicking off a new series checking in with the restaurants on that list — to see what Michelin has meant for their kitchens, their dining rooms, and the city around them. Our first stop is South Boston with chef Karen Akunowicz . Her two Italian restaurants on West Broadway — Fox & the Knife and Bar Volpe — each earned Michelin’s Bib...

PBS’s Breaking the Deadlock drops former politicians, judges, and veteran journalists into staged constitutional crises and asks them to work from the same facts, limits, and scenarios. Moderator Aaron Tang, a UC Davis law professor, joins us to talk about what these simulations reveal about civil discourse and the power of reasoning amid deep disagreement. Their forthcoming episode, “A Matter of...

Damien Hoar de Galvan created one sculpture a day for an entire year, using discarded materials like scrap wood, jars, and household objects. His 365 works are now on view at the ICA, where he’s been awarded the 2025 Foster Prize. He joins us to talk about the project and why these everyday materials matter to him. The Foster Prize exhibition is on view through January 19. To learn more go here ....

On this edition of The Culture Show, Culture Show co-hosts Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley and Edgar B. Herwick III go over the latest headlines on our arts and culture week-in-review. First up, “Heated Rivalry,”  the hockey romance that’s become an unexpected breakout hit. What began as a niche sports drama has grown into a word-of-mouth phenomenon, drawing praise for its explicit intimacy, emotiona...

As part of our recurring segment AI: Actual Intelligence , Imari Paris Jeffries , President and CEO of Embrace Boston and a co-chair of Everyone 250 joins us. . Jeffries shared original, human-centered insights on civic memory, public history, and the work of shaping a more inclusive narrative as Massachusetts approaches its 250th anniversary. Photographer Amani Willett joins us to discuss his lat...

Joyce Kulhawik joins The Culture Show with highlights from the annual voting of the Boston Society of Film Critics, following their marathon session at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, which could be an indicator of this year’s Oscar contenders. The Boston Society of Film Critics awards crowned Sinners , directed by Ryan Coogler, as Best Picture, alongside honors for standout performances, documentari...

Bestselling author George Saunders joins The Culture Show to talk about his forthcoming novel “Vigil.”  Set over a single night, the book follows Jill “Doll” Blaine, a long-deceased guardian figure who keeps watch over a dying oil executive, returning Saunders to the moral and metaphysical terrain familiar from “Lincoln in the Bardo.”  “Vigil” is out January 27, with a Harvard Book Store event on...

Samuel Barber’s Vanessa is a psychologically charged American opera centered on denial, obsession, and self-deception. Premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 1958, the work earned composer Samuel Barber the Pulitzer Prize for Music. The Boston Symphony Orchestra , in collaboration with Boston Lyric Opera , will be performing Vanessa for the first time in BSO history, conducted by Andris Nelsons, w...