The Culture Show Podcast

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 Pattinson, is generating controversy offscreen as well as on. A24 is facing backlash for marketing the film like a white wedding while delivering something much darker. “The Rocky Horror Show” is back on Broadway, along with the chaos that has always surrounded it. Producers are trying to honor the fishnet-clad fervor and audience call-backs that made it legendary without letting them take over the night. Governor Maura Healey is pushing to keep children under 14 off social media, arguing the platforms are designed to hook young users and expose them to harmful content. The Massachusetts House has already passed a bill that would do that. Kanye West has spent years testing how far his antisemitism and extremism can go. In Britain, he hit a wall: the U.K. barred him from entering the country, helping bring down London’s Wireless Festival.

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 musician. Her latest book is “Sharing Space: An Astronaut’s Guide to Mission, Wonder, and Making Change.”Culture Show contributor Pedro Alonzo returns for “AI: Actual Intelligence” with impressions from a recent trip through London’s museum scene. He shares highlights from the city’s current cultural landscape, including a major retrospective devoted to Wes Anderson.Igor Golyak joins The Culture Show to discuss “Our Class,” the award-winning play based on the 1941 massacre of Jews in a small Polish town, and why its story of friendship, betrayal, and violence continues to resonate. He also reflects on what the production’s national success means for a regional theater company. Golyak is founder and artistic director of Arlekin Players Theatre based in Needham.

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 icon’s public image to explore the woman behind it. Presented by The Hanover Theatre Repertory, Who Is Eartha Mae? is onstage through April 19 at the BrickBox Theater at the Jean McDonough Arts Center in Worcester.Mahesh Daas, president of Boston Architectural College and co-author of the graphic novella I, Nobot, joins The Culture Show for another edition of “AI: Actual Intelligence.” He brings his monthly, algorithm-free perspective to the conversation.

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 The Culture Show to discuss the elevated park that transformed an old freight rail line into one of the city’s most influential public spaces. He talks about caring for the gardens that help define the High Line’s identity and what it takes to steward a landscape shaped by both design and self-seeded wildness. Virginia Pye joins The Culture Show to discuss “Marriage and Other Monuments,” her new novel set in Richmond during the reckoning over Confederate memory in 2020, where public conflict spills into the private lives of two sisters and their marriages. She’ll appear at Newtonville Books on Wednesday, April 8 at 7 p.m. to talk about the book.

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 now out in paperback, and she’ll discuss it on Tuesday at the French Library during Night at the Louvre: Art, Intrigue & a Modern Heist; On April 21st she’ll be at the Boston Athenaeum.Tony Award-winning actor Matt Doyle joins The Culture Show to discuss “When Playwrights Kill” Matthew Lombardo’s dark backstage comedy inspired by the real-life collapse of “Tea at Five” and its aborted Broadway hopes. The production is onstage at the Huntington Theatre through April 18; details are here. Playwright Adam Rapp joins The Culture Show to discuss writing the book for “The Outsiders” the Tony-winning Broadway musical adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s novel. In town by way of Broadway in Boston it’s on stage at Citizens Opera House through April 12. To learn more go here.

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 concerns about how vulnerable museums remain to fast, highly organized art crimes. From there, a truck carrying more than 400,000 KitKat bars vanished on its way to Poland, leaving Nestlé trying to solve a very different kind of heist. The stolen shipment weighed 12 tons, turning a candy delivery into an international mystery. And Boston’s arts community is remembering Candelaria Silva-Collins, who died at 71. As the first director of ACT Roxbury, she helped build lasting cultural infrastructure in Roxbury, from Roxbury Open Studios to the early Roxbury Film Festival and the transformation of Hibernian Plus Celine Dion will return to live performance this fall with a 10-show run in Paris, her first full concert engagement in six years. The comeback follows her diagnosis with stiff-person syndrome, which forced her to step away from the spotlight. Finally, “The Pitt” will bring its season finale to Alamo Drafthouse on April 13 as part of a one-night Healthcare Appreciation Week event. It is another example of television being repackaged as a theatrical experience.

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. These works reveal how his time at Harvard shaped his sensibility. Molly Schwartzburg is the Philip Hofer Curator of Printing and Graphic Arts.Finally acclaimed filmmaker Simon Curtis joins The Culture Show to talk about directing “Downton Abbey:The Grand Finale.”

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. He talks about translating the bright, high-impact world of coastal Mexican food and cocktails from the restaurant kitchen to the home cook. It’s Stage and Screen with Joyce Kulhawik, with reviews, previews, and recommendations on what to see now. This week’s roundup includes Ryan Gosling’s “Project Hail Mary” and “Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous” at Lyric Stage. Joyce Kulhawik is a Culture Show contributor, an Emmy-award winning arts and entertainment reporter and President of the Boston Theatre Critics Association. You can find her reviews on Joyce’s Choices.

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 professor of history. Tonight he’ll be at First Parish in Cambridge in conversation with Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley at an event sponsored by Porter Square Books. To learn more go here.Billy Collins joins us to discuss “Dog Show,” his latest collection of poems. Featuring 25 poems with watercolor portraits by Pamela Sztybel, the book enters the canine consciousness — moving from the comic to the metaphysical. Collins is a “New York Times” bestselling author and former U.S. Poet Laureate.GBH’s documentary “Living in Pryde” takes us inside The Pryde in Hyde Park, New England’s first affordable LGBTQ+-welcoming senior housing community. Producer and editor Emily Judem and resident Eddie Whitman join us ahead of the film’s April 4 screening at the Coolidge Corner Theatre as part of “Stories from Our Community.” To learn more about the screening go here.

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: A Tribute to Eddie Palmieri,” happening Wednesday, April 1 at 8 p.m. at the Berklee Performance Center. Berklee Professor Eguie Castrillo and Grammy-winning trumpeter Humberto Ramírez join us to discuss the tribute to Palmieri, the late pianist and bandleader whose La Perfecta helped redefine the sound of salsa and Latin jazz. To learn more go here.And GBH’s Senior Radio Producer Diego Lopez joins us with a recap of PAX East, which turned Boston into a hub of cosplay, tournaments, demos, and gaming fandom for one packed weekend. He shares the highlights from one of the East Coast’s biggest gaming gatherings.

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, Saturday Night Live is heading to Britain. The new adaptation raises the question: can the SNL formula survive a culture with a different comic sensibility? Meta and Google have lost a major case over social media addiction, with a California jury finding Instagram and YouTube liable and awarding $6 million in damages. Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Tracy Kidder has died at 80. In books like “The Soul of a New Machine” and “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” he brought narrative force and moral seriousness to stories about people under pressure and the systems that shaped them. Stephen Colbert is taking his Tolkien fandom to a new level: the late-night host is now co-writing a new “Lord of the Rings film.” His move from superfan to franchise writer has fans wondering what one of pop culture’s most devoted Tolkien obsessives will bring to Middle-earth. And we close the show with our week in preview. Jared recommends “Nixon in China” at Symphony Hall, James Parker offers “An Evening with Black Seed Writers” at Brookline Booksmith and Callie suggests the play “Lifted,” by Mfonisao Udofia onstage at Wellesley College Theatre.

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 a colonoscopy — and turns it into something candid, profane, funny, and unexpectedly life-affirming. Director Tony Benna joins “The Culture Show” to talk about the film, which opens at Alamo Drafthouse Boston Seaport Friday, March 27. Alan Price, Director of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, joins The Culture Show for an overview of their current exhibition “Presidential Pets.” To learn more go here.

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 Ballet’s The Dream program through March 29 at Citizens Opera House. To learn more go here.As part of our “Countdown to 250” series Nonie Gadsden, the MFA’s Katharine Lane Weems Senior Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture, joins The Culture Show to explore the Boston Tea Party through teapots, tea tables, silver, and the rituals of colonial life.

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 approaches its 250th anniversary, the Boston Civic Symphony marks the moment with Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait and Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. Jared talks with music director Francisco Noya and spoken-word artist Amanda Shea, who will narrate Lincoln Portrait, ahead of the orchestra’s March 28 concert at Jordan Hall. To learn more go here.Architect Alan Ricks joins The Culture Show to discuss “Seeking Abundance,” the new book he co-wrote with Sierra Bainbridge, and an approach to design that asks buildings to give more back than they take. The conversation looks at how architecture shapes daily life, communities, and the future we imagine. To learn more about the book go here.

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 SAVE Act in the context of Dr. Martin Luther King’s unfinished legacy, 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 through March 29. To learn more about the production go here.In 1975, as Boston’s busing crisis escalated, Chinatown mothers organized a boycott rather than send their children into desegregating schools. Now, that story is reclaimed through an exhibition and staged readings of Busing the Buffer Zone: Chinatown Mother Boycott Oral History in Play. Playwright Christina R. Chan joins us, along with translator, teacher, and community advocate Suzanne Lee, who worked directly with the mothers.The exhibition is on view at the Pao Arts Center through March 28, with staged readings there on March 28 at 2 and 7 p.m. To learn more go here.

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 album in years, already topping 4 million pre-orders in its first week. Jay-Z heads back to the stage for two Yankee Stadium shows, built around “Reasonable Doubt” and “The Blueprint “— the albums that defined his rise. John Galliano’s collaboration with Zara brings couture sensibility to mass-market retail, blurring the line between luxury and fast fashion.In “As Deep as the Grave,” Val Kilmer is digitally recreated through AI for a posthumous screen performance, with his estate’s support.

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 production and showtimes go here.A sweeping new drama on MASTERPIECE brings one of Britain’s most famous literary families back to the screen. In “The Forsytes,” actors Stephen Moyer and Jack Davenport play brothers Jolyon and James Forsyte, members of a wealthy Victorian dynasty whose fortunes can’t shield them from rivalry, ambition, and betrayal. The series premieres March 22 on PBS. To learn more go here.With baseball season around the corner, Jackson Cannon joins us to talk beer cocktails — inventive drinks that give a ballpark staple a fresh twist. Cannon is the beverage director for ES Hospitality, the team behind some of Boston’s most celebrated restaurants. On April 11th Jackson Cannon is teaching a beer cocktails class and on April 26th you can learn the art and craft of clarified cocktails.

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 today — and what the film reveals now about masculinity, violence, and isolation. We also take listeners calls and observations from the live audience at the Boston Public Library.

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 here.We’re launching a new recurring series, “Read on Arrival,”devoted to short books and novellas that can be read in one sitting but linger long after. Leading the way is former ICA director Jill Medvedow, who joins Jared to discuss the inaugural selection: Helen DeWitt’s novella “The English Understand Wool.”Matthew Shifrin returns for AI: Actual Intelligence, our recurring feature spotlighting original, algorithm-free thinking from voices across the region. This month, the founder and CEO of Bricks for the Blind continues his conversation about traveling blind, from the unpredictability of ride-shares to the apps that can help navigate unfamiliar situations.

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 on the upheaval that followed her spouse’s transition, D’Amico writes about love, estrangement, and what happens when the life you built no longer fits the language you once used to define it. On May 28th she’ll be at Concord Art as part of the Independent Press Prose Reading Series. To learn more go here. And the West Coast premiere of P Carl's play “Becoming A Man” will be opening at Z Space in San Francisco on May 30. Artist Masako Miki joinsThe Culture Show to talk about “Midnight March,” her exhibition now on view at the MassArt Art Museum through May 31. Inspired by Japanese folklore, the show fills the gallery with soft felt creatures that are strange, playful, and faintly uncanny — reimagining figures once associated with fear as something more communal, tender, and inviting. To learn more go here.

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 through 29. To learn more about the production go here.

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 orchestra’s sound in Boston and beyond.Timothée Chalamet stirred debate during a filmed Variety and CNN town hall with Matthew McConaughey when the conversation turned to opera and ballet. His joking but dismissive remarks touched a nerve, raising familiar questions about cultural relevance, audience tastes, and what kinds of art get taken seriously.Concert ticket prices remain one of the biggest frustrations in live music, with fans facing surging costs, layered fees, and little transparency. Now regulators are targeting Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, in a case that could reshape the live-music business and potentially open the door to more competition.Those financial pressures are also changing the theater world. More producers are developing work in London’s West End and other overseas markets, where mounting a production can cost far less than it does on Broadway.

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 physician and an associate professor at Weill Cornell Medical College. He writes about medicine, health care, and politics.Conductor Cristian Măcelaru returns to a pivotal part of his own story on March 15, leading the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra at Symphony Hall in the world premiere of Wynton Marsalis’s new work for cello and orchestra with Yo-Yo Ma. Once an Interlochen student himself, Măcelaru now comes to Boston as music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre National de France. To learn more about the concert go here.For Maureen Abood, baking is a way of carrying culture, memory, and family tradition forward. She joins Jared to talk about her new cookbook, “Lebanese Baking,” and what its recipes reveal about Lebanese life at home and around the table. You can catch her tonight at 6:00 for a tasting and book signing event at Sofra Bakery + Cafe in Allston. To learn more go here.

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 Vinfen Film Festival returns March 28 to GBH’s Brighton studios, featuring films and discussions that challenge stigma around mental health conditions and disabilities. Vinfen’s Vice President of Communications & Development David Brown joins The Culture Show with a preview of this year’s lineup. To learn more go here.Chef and restaurateur Tiffani Faison joins Jared to discuss Tigerbaby, her newest concept at High Street Place Food Hall. Inspired by her former Fenway restaurant Tiger Mama, the counter-service spot brings Southeast and East Asian flavors back into her culinary orbit — and marks her fifth concept in the downtown food hall.

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, and Taub joins us to discuss reviving their story. To learn more go here.Then there are more ways to observe St. Patrick’s Day in Boston than the parade route and the pub crawl. Kiernan Schmitt, author of Secret Boston, joins The Culture Show to explore hidden sites that reveal the city’s Irish and Catholic past — from memorials and monuments to chapels and stories tucked into Boston’s walls.Finally, Fabiola Méndez is bringing the Puerto Rican cuatro to new audiences and bigger stages. Ahead of her Regattabar performance on March 13, and April 30th performance at GBH’s Jazz NOW series, the singer, composer, and bandleader joins Jared Bowen to discuss shaping a musical voice that has taken her from folk-rooted performance to the global stage alongside Bad Bunny. To learn more about the Regattabar performance go here. To learn more about the International Jazz Day show at GBH on April 30 go here.