Episodes
-
March 20, 2026 - Week in Review: BTS, the Bachelorette, and Trump's gold coin
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. -
March 19, 2026 - Jordan Harrison's The Antiquities, Stephen Moyer + Jack Davenport on The Forsytes and beer cocktails
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. -
March 18, 2026 - Wednesday Watch Party: Taxi Driver
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. -
March 17, 2026 - We Black Folk Showcase, Jill Medvedow on "The English Understand Wool," and Matthew Shifrin
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. -
March 16, 2026 - An Oscar Night recap, Lynette D'Amico on "Men I Hate," and Masako Miki
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 Reimagines Mahler's "Song of the Earth"
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. -
March 13, 2026 - Week in Review: Andris Nelsons, an Oscars preview, and a Chalamet faux pas
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. -
March 12, 2026 - Dhruv Khullar on "The Pitt," conductor Cristian Măcelaru, and Maureen Abood's "Lebanese Baking"
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. -
March 11, 2026 - Chef Paul Wahlberg, the Vinfen Film Festival, and Chef Tiffani Faison
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. -
March 10, 2026 - Shaina Taub on "Suffs," a Secret Boston St. Patrick's Day, and Fabiola Méndez
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.
