Episodes
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April 3, 2026 - Week-in-Review: An Art Heist, A Kit-Kat Caper, and Celine Dion's Comeback
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. -
April 2, 2026 - David Duchovny, Edward Gorey, and Simon Curtis
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.” -
April 1, 2026 - Robert Pinsky, Chef Jason Santos, and Joyce's Choices
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. -
March 31, 2026 - Ibram X. Kendi, Fmr. US Poet Laureate Billy Collins, and "Living in Pryde"
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. -
March 30, 2026 - Geoffrey Kelly on "Thirteen Perfect Fugitives," an Eddie Palmieri tribute, and a PAX East recap
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. -
March 27, 2026 - Week in Review: Hannah Montana at 20, SNL's UK debut, and remembering Tracy Kidder
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. -
March 26, 2026 - Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson on "Nixon in China," “André Is an Idiot,” and presidential pets
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. -
March 25, 2026 - Mahesh Daas, Reeves Gabrels + My'Kal Stromlie, and the MFA at 250
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. -
March 24, 2026 - Ken Burns, Francisco Noya and Amanda Shea, and Alan Ricks on "Seeking Abundance"
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. -
March 23, 2026 - Imari Paris Jeffries, Mahler's "Song of the Earth" at the BLO, and "Busing the Buffer Zone"
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.
