The Culture Show Podcast

Kerri Maher  discusses her new novel, Summer of Love, which moves between 1967 San Francisco and the present, tracing how the freedoms, ambitions and upheavals of one generation shape the next. Digital forensics pioneer Hany Farid has spent his career determining whether photographs and videos are real. He joins Bowen to discuss how AI can fabricate events that never happened, cast doubt on genuine evidence and make even an expert question his own eyes. Farid is the Donald Knuth Professor of Computation and Just Communities and a professor of computer science at Dartmouth College, as well as co-founder and chief science officer of GetReal Security.Fazendo a América: Rosângela Rennó and Histories of Memory and Migration in Brazil explores migration between Brazil and the United States through photographs shaped by loss, displacement and reinvention—and asks what is preserved, obscured or erased from personal and political history. Kristen Gresh, the MFA’s Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh Senior Curator of Photographs and curator of the exhibition joins us before it closes August 2.

This week on The Culture Show, Co-host CAllie Crossley is joined by Culture Show Culture Show contributors Joyce Kulhawik and  Lisa Simmons. Joyce Kulhawik is 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. Lisa Simmons  is Artistic and Executive Director of the Roxbury International Film Festival and program manager at Mass Cultural Council.Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey — The film earned a record $52 million for IMAX during its opening weekend as audiences traveled to the limited number of theaters equipped to show it in 70mm. The release has also lifted sales of Emily Wilson’s translation of Homer’s epic past one million copies in the U.S.The World Cup’s biggest images — The final drew a record U.S. audience of nearly 63 million viewers, while Donald Trump’s appearance in Spain’s trophy celebration set off competing edits from FIFA and the White House. A newly resurfaced 2007 photograph also shows Lionel Messi bathing an infant Lamine Yamal during a UNICEF charity shoot.The Louvre reopens the Apollo Gallery — Nine months after thieves stole $102 million in crown jewels, the museum has reopened the gallery without its display cases or surviving treasures. Visitors can now see the gilded room and the window the thieves used to enter.Jimothy takes over the internet — Seattle’s unusually shaped raccoon now has a Roku video game, a bobblehead and an appearance on the White House social media feed.

Bestselling author George Saunders joins The Culture Show to talk about his 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.”  Actress Claire Foy joins The Culture Show to talk about her 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.Boston comedian and actor Steve Sweeney joins The Culture Show to talk about his film “Townie,” which is drawn directly from his Charlestown upbringing. Known for comedy rooted in working-class Catholic culture, Sweeney uses the neighborhood as a lens on loyalty, memory, and what it means to stay put as a place — and a city — changes. 

What Boston learned from its World Cup party: The matches were in Foxborough, but the celebration filled Boston’s pubs, hotels and streets. Aidan McGee, chef and partner at The Dubliner and McGonagle’s Pub, reflects on the Tartan Army, extended closing hours and how Boston can keep its newly activated party gene alive. Gonzalo Grau returns to Boston: Venezuelan-born pianist, composer and multi-instrumentalist Gonzalo Grau brings together Venezuelan rhythms, Latin jazz, flamenco and classical music. Grau and Plural perform a free concert July 25 at Long Live Roxbury, followed by a July 30 appearance with Alex Alvear and the Ecuadorian Council. Both shows support the Massachusetts United for Venezuela Fund. Regina Pizzeria celebrates 100 years: From the lines outside its original North End location to slices served across the region, Regina Pizzeria has become part of Boston’s culinary identity. Corporate chef Mark Murphy joins us to discuss its charred, chewy crust, century-old traditions and the challenge of preserving a hometown institution as it grows. 

Filmmaker Arthur Egeli and producer Judith Richland discuss their documentary portrait of Provincetown painter Anne Packard, following her path from a single mother of five to one of Cape Cod’s most celebrated artists. The film screens July 26 at the Woods Hole Film Festival and August 11 at the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum.Comedian Gus Constantellis remembers his late mother, Julia, whose cooking, sharp opinions and appearances in his viral videos made her beloved by his online audience. The cookbook brings together 75 Greek recipes with stories about family, comedy and grief. Find more from Constantellis at ConstantlyGus.com.Fiddlehead vocalist Patrick Flynn and guitarist Alex Dow discuss the Boston hardcore band’s new EP, Baby I’ll Change, and the family, loss and community behind their music. Fiddlehead plays the Middle East Upstairs on July 29, a free show at the Lynch Family Skatepark on August 1 and Roadrunner on November 13.

Co-directors Doug Blush and Piero F. Giunti discuss Los Lobos: Native Sons, a new documentary tracing the East Los Angeles band’s 50-year journey through rare archival footage, performances and intimate access. The film screens July 26 and 29 at the Woods Hole Film Festival.Bestselling author Brad Meltzer introduces young readers to the conservationist president in I Am Teddy Roosevelt, the latest picture-book biography in his Ordinary People Change the World series.Former O Positive frontman and Northeastern professor Dave Herlihy talks about returning to songwriting and finding an online audience with “Good Trouble,” his homage to civil rights icon John Lewis—and performs the song live in the studio.

On this edition of The Culture Show, Co-host Callie Crossley and contribbutors Lisa Simmons, and James Sullivan go over the week’s top arts and culture headlines. Lisa Simmons is the Artistic and Executive Director of the Roxbury International Film Festival and program manager at Mass Cultural Council. James Sullivan is a journalist and author specializing in popular culture and Americana. He’s also on the Emerson faculty.Christopher Nolan’s $250 million epic, “The Odyssey,” opens July 17 after earning widespread praise for its scale and ambition. Shot entirely with IMAX film cameras, it will screen in 70mm IMAX at only a limited number of theaters. The Michael Jackson biopic “Michael” has become the first biographical film to pass the billion-dollar mark at the global box office, despite criticism that it sanitizes Jackson’s legacy and objections from members of his family. Holden Caulfield turns 75 — J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye helped define the modern voice of adolescence. Its alienated narrator remains an enduring—and contested—American literary figure, recognized by generations of readers for his contempt for adult pretense.Frozen yogurt gets a wellness-era makeover — Froyo is back, with protein, probiotics and gut-health claims replacing the low-fat marketing of earlier crazes. The latest renaissance is being fueled by wellness influencers, stylish new shops and consumers looking for a health-conscious indulgence.The World Cup final expands into a global entertainment spectacle — A closing ceremony featuring Post Malone, Jennifer Hudson, Tom Cruise and other stars will precede Sunday’s match. Madonna, Shakira, BTS, Justin Bieber, Burna Boy and more will then perform during the tournament’s first-ever halftime show.

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.”  

Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee discusses President Trump’s proposed 250-foot triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery. His Atlantic essay, “Trump’s Arch Is Atrocious. Don’t Build It,” considers how the monument could reshape a landscape devoted to sacrifice and remembrance.As drought strains Massachusetts gardens, horticultural expert Uli Lorimer explains why water should go to mature trees, shrubs and perennials before lawns. Lorimer is director of horticulture at Native Plant Trust and author of The Northeast Native Plant Primer.Cape Ann Museum director Oliver Barker and curator Eliza Rathbone explore the friendship among Milton Avery, Adolph Gottlieb and Mark Rothko—and how their summers in Gloucester shaped their art. Avery, Gottlieb & Rothko: By the Sea is on view through September 27.

Playwright Levi Holloway discusses transforming the slow-building dread of the hit film Paranormal Activity from screen to stage. Directed by Sleep No More co-creator Felix Barrett, the new story uses live illusion, darkness and sound to build suspense. It runs at the Emerson Colonial Theatre through July 30.Mahesh Daas, president of Boston Architectural College, shares his impressions of the newly opened Obama Presidential Center, considering how its museum and public campus recast the presidential library as a civic gathering place—and how its monumental design enters Chicago’s storied architectural landscape.Photographer Winslow Martin and Project SAVE executive director Arto Vaun discuss My Armenia (1999–2008), an exhibition of black-and-white photographs tracing everyday life during the first decade of Armenia’s independence. The show also inaugurates Project SAVE’s expanded Watertown gallery dedicated to contemporary photography.

Grammy-winning soprano Jane Eaglen, president of the Boston Wagner Society, previews the American Wagner Festival, running July 27 through August 8 with masterclasses, performances and the popular Wagner and Vino.Shakespeare scholar Caroline Bicks, the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine, discusses Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King, her investigation into the drafts, revisions and creative process behind King’s early fiction.Boston-based violinist, songwriter and producer Rhett Price talks about his debut album, Renaissance Man, and his journey from subway busking and viral cover songs to placing his own original music at center stage.

This week on The Culture Show, Jared Bowen is joined by Culture Show Culture Show contributors Joyce Kulhawik and  James Sullivan for a look at the week’s top arts and culture headlines. James Sullivan is  a journalist and author specializing in popular culture and Americana who is also on the faculty of Emerson College. Joyce Kulhawik is 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.  The Emmy nominations are out, with The Pitt leading the field and Hacks making comedy history. We’ll look at the surprises, snubs and first-year series breaking into the top categories. The White House is taking aim at the Smithsonian, accusing the National Museum of American History of turning away from patriotic storytelling in a new Fourth of July report. The Boston Hunters are stepping up to the plate as one of the first four franchises in the Women’s Pro Baseball League, with play beginning August 1. Microsoft is cutting thousands of Xbox jobs and closing studios, marking a major reversal after years of gaming-industry expansion. Bonnie Tyler, the Welsh singer whose unmistakable raspy voice turned heartbreak into high drama, has died at 75.

Judy Collins joins us ahead of her “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: Farewell Tour” stop at Tanglewood on August 30, co-starring Mary Chapin Carpenter and Rosanne Cash, with special guest Amanda Shires. Collins discusses “Both Sides Now,” interpreting other writers’ songs and writing her own material.Rebecca Bradshaw of Gloucester Stage Company joins us to discuss Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, onstage through August 1. The play traces a love triangle in reverse, moving backward through an affair, a marriage and the betrayals between friends.Francene Blythe-Lewis, president and CEO of Vision Maker Media, joins us to discuss the new PBS limited series First Peoples, First Stories, featuring short films by emerging Native filmmakers about their own communities. Episodes are available through PBS Passport.

Harvard political theorist Danielle Allen joins us to discuss her new book, Radical Duke: How One Aristocrat — and the American Revolution — Transformed Britain, which traces the mystery of a rare parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence found in England to Charles Lennox, the third Duke of Richmond — a British aristocrat who became one of the American Revolution’s most important allies.  Danielle Allen will be at Harvard Book Store on Monday, July 20 at 7:00. To learn more go here.Boston comedian and writer Joe Fenti, known online as Fenti Fried Chicken, joins us to talk about turning the MBTA, awkward dates, Boston bars and corporate absurdity into comedy. His new stand-up special, Partner, is streaming now on YouTube.Culture Show contributor Pedro Alonzo returns with dispatches from Mexico City — from World Cup fever and artisan markets to current museum exhibitions.

Imari Paris Jeffries, president and CEO of Embrace Boston and a co-chair of Everyone250, returns for “AI: Actual Intelligence,” The Culture Show’s monthly, algorithm-free conversation with some of the region’s sharpest thinkers. Cameron McCloud, frontman, rapper and songwriter for the Dallas hip-hop collective Cure for Paranoia, joins The Culture Show after the band won NPR’s 2026 Tiny Desk Contest with “No Brainer.” The band brings the Tiny Desk Contest On The Road tour to The Sinclair in Cambridge on Tuesday, July 7, at 8 p.m.Tony-winning Broadway producer Jeffrey Seller joins The Culture Show to discuss Theater Kid, his memoir about the life that led him from a childhood outside Detroit to the producer’s chair on Rent, Avenue Q, In the Heights and Hamilton. He also looks ahead to Warriors, his latest collaboration with Lin-Manuel Miranda, headed to Broadway in 2027.

Broadway director Marc Bruni joins The Culture Show to talk about The Great Gatsby, the Broadway musical that turns F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story of reinvention, romance and illusion into a Jazz Age stage spectacle. The production comes to Citizens Opera House July 7–19 by way of Broadway in Boston.Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Elizabeth Strout joins us to discuss The Things We Never Say, her latest novel. The book introduces Artie Dam, a high school history teacher whose outwardly ordinary life conceals loneliness, family pain and the truths people cannot quite bring themselves to say.Historic New England president and CEO Vin Cipolla and curator Michelle Tolini Finamore join us to talk about Shoe Stories: Past, Present, Future, the inaugural exhibition at Historic New England’s new Center for Preservation and Collections in Haverhill. The exhibition looks at more than 400 years of shoemaking and design, connecting Haverhill’s “Queen Slipper City” past to contemporary designers, sneakers and the future of sustainable footwear.

Ron Chernow―prizewinning author of seven books, including the National Book Award winner “The House of Morgan,” the Pulitzer Prize winner “Washington: A Life,” and the George Washington Book Prize winner “Alexander Hamilton”―joins The Culture Show to talk about his new biography “Mark Twain.”    From there we talk to National Geographic Explorer  in Residence Tara Roberts. She joins The Culture Show to talk about her book “Written in the Waters: A memoir of History, Home and Belonging.” Finally, author JM Varese joins The Culture Show to talk about his latest novel, a Victorian Gothic thriller that is rooted in the real-life Victorian scandal when arsenic was used  to make decorative wallpaper. JM Varese is Director of Outreach for The Dickens Project at UC Santa Cruz. 

Filmmaker, writer, performer and longtime Provincetown presence John Waters joins The Culture Show during our broadcast from WOMR. He talks with Jared Bowen about Provincetown, his career and his new live show, Going to Extremes, presented by Payomet Performing Arts Center at Provincetown Town Hall on July 23.Provincetown Town Crier Daniel Gómez Llata takes us into the summer rush of Commercial Street, where local news, history and welcome all meet in one very public role. Culture Show producers Kate Dellis and Max Chow-Gillette caught up with him as his busiest season gets underway.Christine McCarthy, chief executive officer of the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, joins us to talk about PAAM’s place at the center of Provincetown’s art story. Founded by artists in 1914, PAAM continues to collect, preserve and exhibit the work of the artists who made Provincetown an American art colony — and the artists shaping it now.Boston-born, Lowell-raised drag performer, singer and actor Jujubee joins us live from Provincetown. She stars with Ginger Minj in RuPaul’s new movie Stop! That! Train! and reunites with Minj in Licked: For Gay, running July 9 through July 26 at the Red Room.

Eddie S. Glaude Jr. joins us to discuss his new book, America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries, as the country approaches its 250th birthday. Regie Gibson, the inaugural Poet Laureate of Massachusetts, joins us to discuss Song of Massachusetts, his new collaboration with composer Carlos Simon. Commissioned by the Boston Pops, the piece premieres at the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular on July 4.The Tony-nominated actress and singer Megan Hilty also brings her star power to the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular. Ahead of the Fourth of July festivities we talk to her about her career, which has moved between Broadway, television and concert stages. You can also catch Megan Hilty at The Umbrella Arts Center on August 30th. To learn more go here.

Chad Smith, president and CEO of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, joins The Culture Show as the BSO heads into a major summer season shadowed by the decision not to renew music director Andris Nelsons’ contract beyond the 2027 Tanglewood season. Smith talks with Jared Bowen about the fallout, the questions facing the orchestra, and what comes next. He also previews the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular on July 4 and the season ahead at Tanglewood. We have invited Andris Nelsons on the show to get his perspective. He has not responded to our invitation.Culture Show contributor Julia Swanson returns for our Public Service Arts Announcement, looking at the public art hiding in plain sight across Boston. Swanson, a multidisciplinary artist and award-winning photographer, is the creator of The Art Walk Project, a series of self-guided micro-tours of art across Greater Boston. This month, she takes us from Rixy’s new Greenway mural, The Midnight Ride, to Boston’s fading ghost signs and the brotherly duo working to keep them visible.

Actor and filmmaker Olivia Wilde joins The Culture Show to talk about The Invite, her new A24 comedy, which she directs and stars in. The film, co-starring Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton, opens in Boston at the Coolidge Corner Theatre on Friday, July 3, before its nationwide release on July 10.Comedian Kevin Flynn, co-founder and executive director of the Nantucket Comedy Festival, joins us as the festival marks its 20th year July 9–11. Its youth program, Stand Up & Learn, helps young people build confidence through comedy.Boston Harbor City Cruises is marking 100 years on the water, from ferries and harbor tours to whale watches and Codzilla. Jared Bowen talks with Bob Lawler, regional vice president and general manager of Boston Harbor City Cruises, and David Coffin, maritime storyteller, chantey singer and longtime harbor narrator.

On this edition of The Culture Show, Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley, and Culture Show contributor Lisa Simmons, go over the week’s top arts and culture headlines, which include:President Trump’s blue Reflecting Pool makeover has become a swampy spectacle in Washington, with algae, peeling paint and blame quickly giving way to parody songs and guerrilla projections. What began as a patriotic renovation ahead of America’s 250th has become an accidental canvas for satire.Clive Davis, the legendary music executive who died this week at 94, leaves behind a towering legacy in American music. With a golden ear for talent, Davis worked with artists from Janis Joplin and Bruce Springsteen to Whitney Houston.More than a century after the Titanic sank, a new fight is surfacing over what should happen to artifacts recovered from the wreck. RMS Titanic Inc., the company with salvage rights, wants to auction more than 100 objects, raising questions about preservation, profit and whether pieces of one of history’s most famous maritime graves should ever be sold.Cape Cod is becoming home to Bards on the Bay, a new Wellfleet retreat for playwrights and theatrical composers founded by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel and Michael Maso, who led The Huntington for more than four decades.Dolly Parton has gone from “9 to 5” to I-65. The country music legend has opened her first truck stop and travel center in Cornersville, Tennessee, complete with fuel, food, showers, Dolly merchandise and a coffee shop called “Cup of Ambition.”

Providence-based chamber choir Ensemble Altera joins The Culture Show live from GBH’s Fraser Performance Studio to perform excerpts from Declarations, a new work marking America at 250. The full world-premiere work will be performed Saturday, June 27 at 7 p.m. at Old South Church in Boston and Sunday, June 28 at 3 p.m. at First Baptist Church in Providence.Curator Souleo and artist Michael A. Cummings discuss Children’s Art Carnival in Harlem: The Making of Contemporary Artists, a new exhibition at Columbia University’s Wallach Art Gallery tracing the Harlem arts center that helped shape generations of artists, including a young Jean-Michel Basquiat.Cliff Dever, owner of Warehouse Kitchen + Sports Bar, joins us to talk about running a downtown Boston sports bar during World Cup fever. Warehouse has partnered with the French national team to serve as the official bar for Les Bleus supporters, just steps from the FIFA Fan Festival at City Hall Plaza.

Percussionist and composer Reynaliz Herrera returns to The Culture Show with excerpts from BIKEncerto, her four-movement concerto for solo bicycle and orchestra. Herrera turns the bicycle into a rich percussive instrument of rhythm, texture, machinery and music. The full album is also available on Bandcamp. Today  we hear excerpts from  I. Everything Movement,  III. Metallic Movement and IV. Tires Movement. Today’s performance full credits: “BIKEncerto: a concerto for solo bicycle and orchestra” Composer: Reynaliz Herrera Performed by: Reynaliz Herrera (Bicycle Percussion Soloist)& Ideas, Not Theories;  Ideas,  Not Theories Orchestra: Founder/Owner/Artistic Director: Reynaliz Herrera, David Flowers: Conductor, Nathaniel Kim: Concertmaster/Violin I, Hannah Rebeca Lopez Vega: Violin II, Emma Michaud: Viola, Thomas Rodman: Cello, Adam Gurczak: Double Bass, Vivek Patel: Flute, Mary O’Keefe: Oboe,, Shannon Leigh: Clarinet, Francesca Panunto: BassoonJill Medvedow returns for Big Little Books, The Culture Show’s book club series celebrating short books that can be read in one sitting but linger long after. This month’s selection is Parade: A Folktale by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Allison Markin Powell — a 96-page novella about memory, guilt, imagination and the mythic creatures we carry with us into adulthood.Jameson Johnson, founder and editor in chief of Boston Art Review, joins us to discuss the publication’s latest issue and how artists are thinking through history, America at 250 and the stories we choose to preserve. The conversation also looks at Art Radar, Boston Art Review’s map of Greater Boston’s art spaces, galleries, museums and artist-run venues.

Filmmaker Rowan Haber joins us to discuss the new documentary We Are Pat, which revisits Julia Sweeney’s famously androgynous Saturday Night Live character through a 2026 lens. Once built around the question of whether Pat was a man or a woman, the film asks what that joke meant then, what it means now and whether Pat can be reconsidered or reclaimed. We Are Pat is available on Apple TV, Prime Video and Fandango at Home.Mahesh Daas, president of Boston Architectural College and co-author of the graphic novella I, Nobot, returns for AI: Actual Intelligence. This month, he looks at data centers — the massive facilities powering the cloud and artificial intelligence — and the questions they raise about land, energy, water, noise and who pays for the infrastructure AI requires.Music journalist Christian John Wikane joins us to discuss A Night at the Disco, co-written with Alice Harris, a full-color look at the artists, producers and performers who turned disco from an underground club sound into a global movement. Wikane will appear at Provincetown Bookshop on Thursday, June 25, Mitchell’s Book Corner on Nantucket on Tuesday, July 7, and Edgartown Books on Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday, July 8.

Imari Paris Jeffries, President and CEO of Embrace Boston and co-chair of Everyone250, returns for AI: Actual Intelligence, The Culture Show’s recurring conversation with some of the region’s sharpest thinkers. This month, he brings his original, algorithm-free perspective on culture, civic life and the stories Boston is choosing to tell.The Boston Athenaeum’s exhibition Imagined Nation looks beyond the familiar scenes of the American Revolution to ask how ideas of nationhood have been formed, recorded and revised across generations. Curator Reed Gochberg joins us to discuss the books, maps, images and objects that reveal America as an unfinished story. The exhibition is on view through November 14, 2026.In The Tao of Lloyd, actor and writer Dennis Trainor Jr. imagines Lloyd Dobler, the open-hearted Gen X icon from Say Anything, decades later — older, grayer and still refusing the program. The new solo show heads to the Edinburgh Fringe this August, and Trainor is raising funds to help bring the production to Edinburgh. You can also see a workshop performance June 27 at Western Avenue Studios & Lofts in Lowell, before the show runs at the Edinburgh Fringe August 6 through 30.

Historian, lawyer and Pulitzer-prize winning author Annette Gordon-Reed joins The Culture Show to talk about her book “On Juneteenth,” which explores the holiday commemorating the day Union troops announced the end of slavery in Texas. We mark the staying power of William Shakespeare with Regie Gibson, the inaugural Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He’s a writer, performer, and educator whose work engages Shakespeare through spoken word .Finally the best-selling author Nina MacLaughlin joins The Culture Show to talk about her essay book “Summer Solstice,” which is a meditation on a season full of long days, hot nights and  fat red tomatoes.

Dr. Noelle Trent, president and CEO of the Museum of African American History in Boston and Nantucket, joins us to discuss Freedom! A Juneteenth Celebration. The museum marks the holiday with a free open house and block party on Joy Street, plus a sister celebration on Nantucket.Mary Grant, president of MassArt, returns for AI: Actual Intelligence, our recurring conversation with some of the region’s most original thinkers. This month, she reflects on a commencement season marked by political controversy, disinvited speakers and debates over what graduates need to hear.Catherine T. Morris, founder and executive director of the Boston Art & Music Soul Festival, joins us to discuss MOMENTUM, a five-day festival celebrating Black art, music, culture and enterprise across Greater Boston. She is joined by Isaiah Thelwell of Greater Brockton Young Professionals, one of the partners bringing MOMENTUM to Brockton through Fuller After Dark.

Sebastian Crane and Lawrence Gullo  join us to discuss the Salem Rainbow Stroll, a 90-minute walking tour exploring Salem’s hidden LGBTQIA+ history. The tour runs weekends through June, with proceeds benefiting the Trans Emergency Fund of Massachusetts.Director Dan Egan joins us to discuss Transforming the Beautiful Game: The Clyde Best Story, opening the Roxbury International Film Festival on June 18 at the Museum of Fine Arts. The documentary follows Clyde Best’s rise from Bermuda to West Ham United, where he became one of the first Black stars in English soccer while facing racism from the stands.Kate McNamara, director of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, and James Hoff, co-founder of Primary Information, join us to discuss Salad Days: Primary Information. The summer project turns the Carpenter Center’s third floor into a temporary art bookstore, screening room and archive, on view June 18 through August 16.

Regie Gibson, the inaugural Poet Laureate of Massachusetts, joins us to discuss Song of Massachusetts, his new collaboration with composer Carlos Simon. Commissioned by the Boston Pops, the piece premieres at the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular on July 4.Artist and arts organizer Josef Palermo joins us to discuss his Atlantic piece, What I Saw Inside the Kennedy Center. Palermo spent 10 months at the Kennedy Center as its first curator of visual arts and special programming.Justin Pelletier, chief operating officer of Nashoba Valley Winery in Bolton, joins us as the farm-winery heads into its busiest season. New England’s oldest running winery has grown into a winery, orchard, distillery, brewery and restaurant operation.

Antonia Bennett joins us ahead of her Father’s Day concert at Regattabar in Cambridge on June 21. The daughter of Tony Bennett and Sandra Grant Bennett, she grew up close to the world of American popular song before studying at Berklee and building her own career in jazz, standards and original music.Eddie S. Glaude Jr. joins us to discuss his new book, America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries, as the country approaches its 250th birthday. The Princeton professor, political commentator and New York Times bestselling author will appear at a Brookline Booksmith event at WBUR CitySpace tonight at 6:30.Igor Golyak, founder and artistic director of Arlekin Players Theatre, joins us to preview DELIRIUM, his new adaptation of Eugène Ionesco’s Frenzy for Two, or More. The production runs June 18 through July 2 at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, turning an endless domestic argument into absurdist comedy, existential crisis and public chaos.

This week on The Culture Show, Jared Bowen is joined by Culture Show co-host Callie Crossley and Culture Show contributor James Sullivan, a journalist and author specializing in popular culture and Americana who is also on the faculty of Emerson College, for a look at the week’s top arts and culture headlines.In Barcelona, Gaudí’s Sagrada Família reaches a milestone 144 years in the making, with the completion of the central tower dedicated to Jesus Christ — making the basilica the tallest church in the world.In Washington, President Trump’s name is coming down from the Kennedy Center after a federal judge ruled the renaming illegal, even as the institution prepares to award Bill Maher the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.David Hockney, one of the best-known contemporary artists, has died at age 88. We reflect on his legacy, which included his famed sun-soaked swimming pools of Los Angeles, the landscapes of his native Yorkshire and his innovative works with digital media. With World Cup matches headed to Foxborough, Boston faces a civic stress test as the tournament brings questions about traffic, transit, late-night crowds, fan culture and protest.

James Beard Award-winning cookbook author Dorie Greenspan joined The Culture Show to talk about her deep dive into Katharine Hepburn’s many brownie recipes. Greenspan, the writer behind xoxoDorie, traced the recipe’s journey from newspaper to cookbook to handwritten variations — with debates over cocoa, chocolate, oven temperature and a little movie-star mythology. Her latest book is Dorie’s Anytime Cakes. To see Katharine Hepburn's hand-written brownie recipe, courtesy of the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University, visit the GBH News YouTube channel.Susanne Ebbinghaus, curator of ancient art at the Harvard Art Museums, joined The Culture Show to discuss Celtic Art Across the Ages, on view through Aug. 2. The exhibition brings together nearly 300 objects from Europe and North America — including jewelry, weapons, carved stone and images — to explore more than 2,500 years of Celtic art, identity and imagination.Cocktail icon Jackson Cannon, beverage director for ES Hospitality, joined The Culture Show to talk about the bright, bitter, fizzy world of the spritz. From Aperol and Campari to vermouth, amaro and sparkling wine, Cannon shared what makes a good spritz and what he’s pouring now. On July 1 at 6 p.m., Standard Italian hosts a Summer of Spritz dinner in the Fenway.

Mariachi singer and cultural organizer Veronica Robles joins us to preview Vive Latinoamérica 2026, the Veronica Robles Cultural Center’s annual celebration of Latin American music, dance, and visual art. The showcase takes place Sunday, June 14, from 2 to 6 p.m. at Boston Symphony Hall. Lisa Simmons, artistic and executive director of the Roxbury International Film Festival, previews RoxFilm 2026, New England’s largest showcase for films by, for, and about people of color. The festival runs in person June 18–26, followed by virtual programming June 26–July 2. Commonwealth Shakespeare Company founding artistic director Steve Maler joins us to discuss A Midsummer Night’s Dream, this summer’s Free Shakespeare on the Common production. The show runs July 22 through August 9 at the Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common as the company celebrates the 30th anniversary of Free Shakespeare on the Common.

The Boston Gay Men’s Chorus marks Pride Month with RISE!, a concert celebrating protest, pride and the power of being seen. Music director Reuben Reynolds joins us to talk about a program that moves from Broadway anthem to protest song, from the dance floor to the front lines of history, coming to Groton Hill Music Center on June 14. Photographer Matthew Connors has spent more than a decade documenting protests, uprisings and places under authoritarian rule around the world. He joins us to discuss his new book, “The Axe Will Survive the Master,” which traces the recurring images of unrest — crowds, barricades, riot gear — and how protest and repression echo across borders. Abilities Dance Boston presents the world premiere of FIREBIRD, PART 2, a new ballet about a magical bird who finally gets to save herself. Founder, executive and artistic director Ellice Patterson and composer Andrew Choe join us to talk about this sequel to the company’s 2021 Firebird, with performances June 19 through 21 at Boston University’s Joan and Edgar Booth Theatre. 

Co-host Callie Crossley and Maurice Emmanuel Parent, award-winning actor, educator and Producing Artistic Director of The Front Porch Arts Collective, join us to recap the Tony Awards and what Broadway’s biggest night revealed about the state of the industry.Vanessa Calderón-Rosado, CEO of IBA, joins us to discuss La CASA: The Center for Arts, Self-determination and Activism, the largest Latino arts hub in New England, now open in the South End’s Villa Victoria.Grammy-winning soprano Jane Eaglen, a faculty member at New England Conservatory and president of the Boston Wagner Society, returns for another edition of “AI: Actual Intelligence,” with a wide-ranging conversation on how Timothée Chalamet may have done opera a favor, why concert performances matter for opera singers and who will fund opera’s future.

This week on The Culture Show, Callie Crossley is joined by Culture Show contributor Lisa Simmons and GBH global correspondent and news host Jeremy Siegel for a look at the week’s top arts and culture headlines. YouTubers are turning online followings into theatrical ticket sales, with internet-born horror films like Backrooms and Obsession making the case for a new route to the multiplex.Younger audiences are showing up for films that feel connected to the online conversation, raising the question of whether Gen Z is saving theaters or changing what gets them there.From Martin Scorsese’s AI storyboards to an AI actress, AI opera experiments and Amazon’s generative-AI animated series, artists are debating where the technology helps and where it threatens human craft.Clint Eastwood may be retiring from filmmaking, Euphoria has ended after three seasons, Serena Williams is headed back to the court and Jay-Z returned to the stage at Roots Picnic.The show remembers Peabo Bryson, the velvet-voiced R&B balladeer and two-time Grammy winner who gave Disney two of its signature love songs.

After her mother’s death, writer Alysia Abbott was raised by her father—poet Steve Abbott—in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury during the height of counterculture. Her memoir “Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father” captures that vivid, unconventional childhood and the complexities of growing up amid both liberation and loss. Now adapted into a feature film produced by Sofia Coppola, Abbott joins us to reflect on seeing her story come to life on screen. As the only son of Johnny Cash and June Carter, John Carter Cash has carried forward one of America’s most enduring musical legacies. A Grammy-winning producer, songwriter, and author, he’s worked with artists from Willie Nelson to Sheryl Crow while preserving his parents’ archives and spirit. He joins The Culture Show to talk about his latest book, The Complete Johnny Cash: Lyrics from a Lifetime of Songwriting, which gathers more than five decades of his father’s words—offering insight into the man behind the Man in Black.Finally Berlin-based baker Laurel Kratochvila joins the Culture SHow to talk about her  cookbook  Dobre Dobre: Baking from Poland and Beyond. The book celebrates Poland’s baking traditions — from Jewish-diasporic classics to regional favorites — and reveals how migration and memory live on in every recip

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. Geoff Bennett, co-anchor and co-managing editor of PBS NewsHour, joins The Culture Show to discuss his new book, Black Out Loud: The Revolutionary History of Black Comedy from Vaudeville to ’90s Sitcoms. Bennett traces the long arc of Black comedy, from minstrelsy and vaudeville to Richard Pryor, In Living Color, and Living Single. 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. 

Patti Smith, National Book Award–winning author of “Just Kids,” joins The Culture Show to discuss her latest memoir, “Bread of Angels.” The book traces her imaginative postwar childhood, her life with Fred “Sonic” Smith, and the years of loss and renewal that shaped her return to writing and performance. Daniel Mendelsohn—Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities at Bard College, and frequent contributor of essays to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books where he is Editor-at-Large—discusses his new translation of Homer's “The Odyssey.” Three-time U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky joins The Culture Show to talk about retiring from Boston University where he has been a professor since 1989. 

Ethan Hawke has built one of the most varied careers in contemporary film, spanning Hollywood classics like Dead Poets Society and Training Day, as well as independent films such as Before Sunrise and Boyhood. He’s also an accomplished novelist, screenwriter, producer, and filmmaker. He joined us ahead of receiving the 2025 Coolidge Corner Theatre Award.Few people know more about art theft than Anthony Amore. As Director of Security and Chief Investigator at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, he’s spent decades pursuing the truth behind its legendary 1990 heist. His new book, “The Rembrandt Heist: The Story of a Criminal Genius, a Stolen Masterpiece, and an Enigmatic Friendship,” revisits another one of Boston’s great art crimes — the 1975 theft of a Rembrandt from the MFA — and the larger-than-life thief who pulled it off, Myles Connor.And five-time James Beard Award winner Dorie Greenspan brings sweetness (and some savoriness) to the everyday with her new cookbook “Dorie’s Anytime Cakes” — filled with loaves, Bundts and snackable slices. 

Bobbi Brown built a beauty empire on simplicity and self-expression. She joins The Culture Show to talk about her new book  “Still Bobbi,” where  she lays bare her lessons for  reinvention, resilience, and redefining beauty on her own terms.From there, actor, singer and entrepreneur Donnie Wahlberg. Familiar to millions as “Blue Bloods’” Detective Danny Reagan, he spent fourteen seasons solving crimes in New York City. Now Danny Reagan is back — but this time, he’s doing it Boston-style. “Blue Bloods” followed a multi-generational law-enforcement family. In "Boston Blue," Wahlberg once again steps into Reagan’s shoes — this time moving the New York detective to Wahlberg’s own hometown. He joins The Culture Show to talk about a new chapter in the “Blue Bloods” universe and about his homecoming. Finally, McGonagle’s Pub  landed a spot on “The New York Times” list of America’s best restaurants, making it the first Irish pub to get this national recognition. Chef Aidan McGee joins The Culture Show to talk about how he is reimagining pub fare. Aidan McGee is the chef patron of The Dubliner and McGonagle's Pu

Artist Derrick Adams joins us to discuss Derrick Adams: View Master, his first major museum survey, now on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art. The exhibition brings together more than 100 works from the past 25 years — paintings, sculpture, collage, video, performance and public projects — celebrating Black life, leisure and everyday joy. To learn more go here.Tony Award nominee Melissa Errico joins us to talk about Back to Barbra, her new cabaret show with pianist and music director Billy Stritch at 54 Below. A follow-up to The Streisand Effect, the show returns to Barbra Streisand’s music as a conversation about influence, performance and how one singer makes another icon’s songs her own. To learn more go here. Tickets for the May 29 livestream are available here.

Today on The Culture Show, we're joined by Marc Shaiman, the award-winning composer and lyricist whose work runs from When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle to Hairspray, Smash and Mary Poppins Returns, joins us with his new memoir, Never Mind the Happy. Before the Tonys, the Oscars and the Broadway openings, he was a teenager haunting community theaters, a young musician swept into Bette Midler’s world, and creating a career that would move through the devastation of AIDS, the machinery of Hollywood and the bruising, and thrilling business of making musicals. On June 9th, he'll be at Broadway in Worcester for "An Evening with Mark Shaiman." For tickets and more information, click here.Then artist Steve Locke joins us with his first career monograph,I Said What I Said, a new book featuring three decades of work in painting, sculpture and public art. From portraiture to public memory, Locke’s work confronts race, desire, and history — and asks what America is willing to look at.

Today on The Culture Show, Danielle Allen, the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at Harvard Kennedy School, joins us to discuss her  New York Times essay, “Nothing Beats Polarization Like Civics Education” She is the author of Our Declaration and the forthcoming Radical Duke: How One Aristocrat — and the American Revolution — Transformed Britain.Eve Plumb, best known as Jan Brady on The Brady Bunch, joins us to discuss her new memoir, Happiness Included: Jan Brady and Beyond. She’ll be at First Parish Church in Cambridge on June 4 at 7 p.m. for a Harvard Book Store signing of Happiness Included.Matthew Shifrin, founder and CEO of Bricks for the Blind, joins us for “AI: Actual Intelligence” with a look at sports and accessibility. From tennis to cricket to rock climbing, Shifrin explores how adaptations to familiar games can be literally game-changing for blind athletes.

Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart was recently 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. Zara Anishanslin joins The Culture Show to talk through her latest book “The Painter’s Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists Who Championed the American Revolution.” Zara Anishanslin is a Professor of History and Art History at the University of Delaware. As part of Countdown to 2026, we explore Paul Revere’s Sons of Liberty Bowl, crafted in 1768 to honor a Massachusetts vote rejecting new British taxes. Engraved with the names of lawmakers who opposed those measures, it’s a key artifact of early resistance. Ethan Lasser, Chief of Curatorial Affairs and Conservation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, joins us for an overview. To learn more about the Sons of Liberty Bowl and the MFA’s exhibitions and programming go here.

For this month’s Watch Party, Jared Bowen is joined by Callie Crossley, host of GBH’s Under the Radar with Callie Crossley, and Joyce Kulhawik, Emmy Award-winning arts and entertainment critic and president of the Boston Theater Critics Association, to revisit All the President’s Men. Alan J. Pakula’s 1976 political thriller stars Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, whose reporting helped uncover the Watergate cover-up. Released during America’s Bicentennial, with the country still reeling from Vietnam and Watergate, the film became one of the great newspaper movies — finding suspense in missed calls, reluctant sources, editors demanding one more confirmation and the dawning realization that a botched break-in may reach into the White House. Fifty years later, we ask how it plays in 2026: as a period piece, or as newly relevant in a time of political distrust, attacks on the press and competing versions of reality.

Imari Paris Jeffries, president and CEO of Embrace Boston, joins us to preview tonight’s Embrace Honors Harry Hom Dow event, honoring the first Chinese American admitted to the Massachusetts Bar.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.Jeffrey Richmond-Moll, the George Putnam Curator of American Art at the Peabody Essex Museum, joins us to discuss Edmonia Lewis: Said in Stone, the first major retrospective devoted to the 19th-century Black and Indigenous sculptor.

The Tobin Bridge could become a public artwork about the forces shaping the coast around it. Ryan Edwards, a principal at MASARY Studios, joins us to discuss Eco-Rhythms — also called Accumulating Rhythms — a proposed lighting installation that would respond to tides and other ecological patterns along the Mystic River. To learn more, go here. Boston’s music history is hitting the road. Matt Bowker, founder of Soundscape Tours, joins us to talk about the new Mighty Mighty Bus Tour, which traces more than 60 years of local music through the clubs, venues and neighborhoods of Boston and Cambridge. To learn more, go here. It’s time for “AI: Actual Intelligence,” our recurring conversation with Mary Grant, president of Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Each month, Grant joins us for original, algorithm-free observations on art, culture, education and the creative life of the region. To learn more about MassArt, go here. 

Peter Wolf came to Boston to study painting, but quickly became part of the city’s musical bloodstream — performing with The Hallucinations, spinning records at WBCN and fronting The J. Geils Band. As MassArt honors him with an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree, Wolf joins us to talk about art, music — and Waiting on the Moon, his memoir of late nights and unforgettable run-ins with Muddy Waters, Alfred Hitchcock and more.Megan Hilty joins us ahead of An Evening with Megan Hilty at The Umbrella Arts Center in Concord. The Tony-nominated actress and singer brings songs and stories from a career that has moved between Broadway, television and concert stages. To learn more, go here.Independent curator and art historian John Ravenal joins us to discuss History Maker, Robert Lazzarini’s proposed exhibition for the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The project was selected, then collapsed before it was announced, raising questions about art, politics and what America chooses to put on the world stage. To learn more, go here.