Episodes
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June 12, 2026 - Week in Review: Sagrada Família, the Kennedy Center, and David Hockney
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. -
June 11, 2026 - Dorie Greenspan on Kate Hepburn's brownies, Celtic Art at the HAM, and Jackson Cannon's summer spritzes
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. -
June 10, 2026 - Veronica Robles on Vive Latinoamérica, RoxFilm 2026, and A Midsummer Night's Dream
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. -
June 9, 2026 - RISE! by the Boston Gay Men's Chorus, Matthew Connors, and Firebird Part 2
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. -
June 8, 2026 - The 2026 Tony Awards, La CASA in the South End, and Jane Eaglen
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. -
June 5, 2026 - Week in Review: Horror films, Taylor Swift's Toy Story tune, and Euphoria
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. -
June 4, 2026 - "Fairyland," John Carter Cash, and Baking from Poland and Beyond.
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 -
June 3, 2026 - Bob Odenkirk 's "Normal, Geoff Bennett's "Black Out Loud," and Lebanese Baking
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. -
June 2, 2026 - Patti Smith, a new translation of "The Odyssey," and three-time U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky
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. -
June 1, 2026 - Ethan Hawke, Anthony Amore, and "Dorie's Anytime Cakes"
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.
