Podcast
The Culture Show Podcast
Hosted by GBH News · EN
A Boston-based podcast that thrives in how we live. What we like to see, watch, taste, hear, feel and talk about. It’s an expansive look at our society through art, culture and entertainment. It’s a conversation about the seminal moments and sizable shocks that are driving the daily discourse. We’ll amplify local creatives and explore the homegrown arts and culture landscape and tap into the big talent that tours Boston along the way.
128episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
August 14, 2026 - Week in Review: DNF Debate, Potterheads' Win Duel With History, and Obama's Great Books
3d ago00:53:39Tap to summarizeJared Bowen is joined by Culture Show contributor Lisa Simmons, Artistic and Executive Director of the Roxbury International Film Festival, and GBH’s Jeremy Siegel, host of In Common, for a look at some of the week’s biggest arts and culture stories. Before Anthony Bourdain became the celebrated chef, writer and world traveler we knew, he was a cocky 19-year-old who landed at the bottom of a Provincetown restaurant kitchen. The new film Tony revisits that formative summer, with The Holdovers breakout Dominic Sessa playing the future culinary icon. Nearly 30 years after the murder of Tupac Shakur, a memoir has become central evidence in the case against Duane “Keffe D” Davis. Compton Street Legend placed Davis near the center of the events surrounding the killing. Now his lawyers argue that the swagger, exaggeration and street cred that helped sell the book shouldn’t be mistaken for truth. In Wales, Harry Potter fans forced a multimillion-dollar power cable to change course after its planned route threatened the beach where Dobby the house-elf is memorialized. The twist: the rerouted cable now passes closer to actual Bronze Age burial remains. And when is it okay to give up on a book? Goodreads has added a dedicated “Did Not Finish” shelf, giving new life to an old readerly debate over whether abandoning a book is sensible judgment—or simply quitting too soon.
Transcribe →August 13, 2026 - Valerie Fridland, Phillip Kennicott and an afternoon at the opera with Jane Eaglan
4d ago00:55:31Tap to summarizeValerie Fridland, sociolinguist and professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, joins us to talk about her new book, Why We Talk Funny: The Real Story Behind Our Accents—from how accents develop and change to what our speech can reveal about identity, belonging and the assumptions we make about one another.Philip Kennicott, Pulitzer Prize-winning culture critic for The Washington Post, discusses the paper’s ambitious project, The 25 most influential works of American culture, tracing 250 years through everything from Thomas Paine and Jackson Pollock to blue jeans, Thriller and Doom.Jane Eaglen, Grammy-winning soprano, New England Conservatory faculty member and president of the Boston Wagner Society, returns for “AI: Actual Intelligence” following the Society’s 2026 American Wagner Festival to talk Wagner, singing and the latest stories from the world of classical music.
Transcribe →August 12, 2026 - Judy Collins, Mahesh Daas on architecture and heat waves , and the North End Fisherman's Feast
5d ago00:55:32Tap to summarizeJudy 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.Mahesh Daas, president of the Boston Architectural College, returns for “AI: Actual Intelligence” to talk about how cities can adapt to increasingly extreme summer heat—from shade and trees to water, street design and lessons from places that have lived with punishing temperatures for centuries.The 116th annual Fisherman’s Feast returns to Boston’s North End August 13–16. Domenic Strazzullo, president of the Madonna del Soccorso Society, which organizes the Feast, and The Boston Guido, one of this year’s Best Meatball Competition judges, join Jared to preview four days of processions, food, the famed Flight of the Angel and Best Meatball Competition.
Transcribe →August 11, 2026 - Ask E. Jean, Justin Crane on the McKinley School, and The Jack of Hearts Club
6d ago00:55:28Tap to summarizeFor decades, E. Jean Carroll dispensed advice as a journalist, television personality and Elle columnist. Then she took Donald Trump to court—and won twice. Director Ivy Meeropol joins us to discuss Ask E. Jean, her new documentary looking beyond the courtroom at Carroll’s unconventional life, career and refusal to be silenced. Ask E. Jean screens August 11 at 6 p.m. at Water’s Edge Cinema in Provincetown, followed by a Q&A with Meeropol, and August 27 as part of the Nantucket Film Festival’s NFF NOW Summer Doc Series.Revere’s century-old McKinley School is being transformed into an unusual civic hub, bringing preschool classrooms, city offices and a regional 911 dispatch center under one roof. CambridgeSeven principal Justin Crane discusses the challenges of adapting the historic McKinley School for radically different uses—and designing it to serve its community for decades to come.The new musical The Jack of Hearts Club travels back to Provincetown in 1963, where the regulars at a local gay bar gather for one last summer celebration as relationships and lives face change. Creator Jon Richardson, who wrote the book, music and lyrics, joins us to discuss his musical love letter to Provincetown. The Jack of Hearts Club runs at Provincetown Theater through September 6.
Transcribe →August 10, 2026 - Emily Ruddock, Carl Sprinchorn Exhibition, and Big Little Books with a French 75 Twist
1w ago00:55:29Tap to summarizeFederal arts funding cuts are hitting New England organizations in jobs, programs and dollars. Emily Ruddock, executive director of MASSCreative, joins Jared to discuss a new regional survey of 125 arts and cultural organizations, which reports $13.5 million in lost or unavailable funding and more than 700 jobs affected.Swedish-born modernist Carl Sprinchorn found inspiration in the Maine woods, painting the lumberjacks, hunters and laborers who lived and worked there. Devon Zimmerman, curator at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art, discusses the major new exhibition Carl Sprinchorn: All the World is a Painting, which reconsiders the artist through the lenses of immigration, sexuality, masculinity and American modernism.BIG LITTLE BOOKS returns with a twist. Jill Medvedow and cocktail icon Jackson Cannon join Jared to discuss John Maxwell Hamilton’s The French 75, a spirited history of the iconic cocktail, from its World War I origins through a century of legend and reinvention. Cannon, beverage director for ES Hospitality, brings the cocktail history out of the book and into the glass. On August 20 Jackson Cannon will be throwing a Garden Party Dinner at Standard Italian. To learn more go here.
Transcribe →August 7, 2026 - Week in Review: Ariana Grande, an AI summer camp, and John Cage's long awaited chord change
1w ago00:55:30Tap to summarizeThis 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.Ariana Grande plans to step back from public life after her Eternal Sunshine tour, following years of scrutiny over her body and health. Can a celebrity ever truly reclaim her privacy?A new MASSCreative survey finds New England arts groups lost $11.4 million in federal funding, affecting 486 jobs and forcing cuts to programs and public services.Live Nation-owned Veeps has laid off nearly all staff at BrooklynVegan, Alternative Press, Revolver and Goldmine, shrinking the music press that helps emerging artists find an audience.Fans buying albums from Charli xcx, Olivia Rodrigo and others are finding missing passages, early mixes and absent guest stars—the result of physical copies going into production before the music is finished.John Cage’s As Slow as Possible changed a chord for the first time in two and a half years. The 639-year performance at a German church is scheduled to end in 2640.
Transcribe →August 6, 2026 - Cellist Matt Haimovitz, Claudia Rankine on "Triage," and The Great Elephant Migration
2w ago00:55:31Tap to summarizeCellist Matt Haimovitz discusses Neighbors, a three-track EP created after federal immigration operations brought fear and protest to his new home in the Twin Cities. Recorded with University of Minnesota students and colleagues, the project includes a reimagining of Ernest Bloch’s “Prayer” incorporating the words of Minneapolis activists. Matt Haimovitz is a multi-Grammy-nominated cellist and assistant professor of cello at the University of Minnesota.Claudia Rankine discusses Triage, a genre-defying work that moves among novel, memoir, criticism and visual art. Through two women whose decades-long friendship begins with a game of collapsing to the ground, Rankine examines grief, solidarity, self-protection and the demand to act amid relentless loss. Ruth Ganesh discusses The Great Elephant Migration, which brings one hundred life-size elephant sculptures to Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue Mall. Indigenous artisans in southern India made the herd from lantana, an invasive plant threatening elephant habitat. The free installation runs August 8 through September 13 and explores how humans and wildlife can share the planet
Transcribe →August 5, 2026 - Dylan Gottlieb's "Yuppies," Natalie Lemle's "Artifacts," and Plays in Place with Patrick Gabridge
2w ago00:55:31Tap to summarizeHistorian Dylan Gottlieb discusses Yuppies: The Bankers, Lawyers, Joggers, and Gourmands Who Conquered New York, which traces how ambitious young bankers, lawyers and other professionals made Wall Street glamorous, reshaped American cities and helped build a culture of punishing work, gentrification and widening inequality. The book was named one of The New Yorker’s best books of 2026 so far.Writer and visual art advisor Natalie Lemle discusses her debut novel, Artifacts. The story follows a trusts-and-estates lawyer drawn into a dispute over a Roman glass cup that Italy says was illegally removed—and back to the archaeological dig, relationships and unanswered questions she left behind two decades earlier.Plays in Place producing artistic director Patrick Gabridge previews four site-specific productions exploring the conflicts and unfinished promises of the American Revolution. The plays include Loyalty or Liberty in Newport, A Stake in the Ground: 1774 at Historic Deerfield, The Slippery Truth at Connecticut’s Old New-Gate Prison and The Hull/Hawley Playsat Historic Northampton.
Transcribe →August 4, 2026 - Paul Giamatti and John Turturro on Rhinoceros, Cookie Queens, and Jazz Urbane Cafe
2w ago00:55:30Tap to summarizePaul Giamatti and John Turturro discuss the American Repertory Theater’s production of Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinoceros.Directed by Diane Paulus, the darkly comic play follows a town whose residents surrender their humanity and join the herd. The production runs August 14 through September 27 at the Loeb Drama Center in Cambridge. To learn more go here.Director Alysa Nahmias discusses Cookie Queens, a new documentary following four Girl Scouts, ages five to twelve, through the ambition, competition and family commitment of cookie season. The film examines what girls learn while navigating an $800 million business and opens in theaters nationwide on August 7.Composer and educator Bill Banfield takes us inside Jazz Urbane Cafe, a new 200-seat music venue and restaurant in Nubian Square. Banfield explains how Jazz Urbane grew from a performing collective and record label into a permanent home for Boston musicians to share the stage with nationally recognized artists.
Transcribe →August 3, 2026 - TV Goes to the Movies at the Brattle, Boston's sporty public art, and Dear Evan Hansen
2w ago00:55:31Tap to summarizeThe Brattle Theatre’s TV Goes to the Movies series explores how filmmakers have portrayed television news, corporate power and journalistic ambition. Boston Globe critic Chris Vognar previews a lineup that includes Network, Broadcast News, The Insider, Nightcrawler and Anchorman. The series runs August 5 through September 2.Culture Show contributor Julia Swanson shares public spaces where art, play and community can keep Boston’s World Cup energy going after the games. Swanson created The Art Walk Project, a collection of self-guided tours exploring murals, sculptures and installations across Greater Boston and beyond.Duxbury native Mickey White discusses Harbour Lights Theatre and its effort to bring New York theatre professionals together with Massachusetts artists. The actor, producer and artistic director launches the company’s mainstage work with Dear Evan Hansen, directed by Adam Pascal and running August 6 through 9 at the Carr Amphitheater in Hingham.
Transcribe →