Episodes
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July 13, 2026 - Jane Eaglen, Caroline Bicks on "Monsters in the Archives," and Rhett Price
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. -
July 10, 2026 - Week in Review: Emmy nominations, XBox and Playstation controversy, and John Oliver on General Hospital
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. -
July 9, 2026 - Judy Collins, Betrayal at Gloucester Stage Company, and First Peoples, First Stories
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. -
July 8, 2026 - Danielle Allen on "Radical Duke," Fenti Fried Chicken, and Pedro Alonzo on Mexico City art
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. -
July 7, 2026 - Imari Paris Jeffries, Cameron McCloud from Cure for Paranoia, and Jeffrey Seller
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. -
July 6, 2026 - The Great Gatsby, Elizabeth Strout, and Historic New England
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. -
July 3, 2026 - Ron Chernow, Tara Roberts, and a Victorian Gothic Thriller
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. -
July 2, 2026 - Live from P-town: John Waters, the Town Crier, Avital Sagalyn at PAAM, and Jujubee
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. -
July 1, 2026 - Eddie S. Glaude Jr, "Song of Massachusetts," and Megan Hilty
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. -
June 30, 2026 - Boston Symphony Orchestra President and CEO Chad Smith and Julia Swanson on Boston public art
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.
