Episodes
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June 26, 2024 - Sheila E, sports and art, and Queer AF
Percussionist and vocalist .Sheila E. is known for her solo work and her collaborations with Prince, and a setlist that spans R&B, Funk, Jazz, and Latin Pop. Now she's bringing her beats to Boston by way of two shows at City Winery. She joins The Culture Show with the preview.From there, how does Boston, the city of champions, honor the stars who made this town a sports town? With public art. Julia Swanson takes us on a tour of the bronzes and bursts of color celebrating athletic greats. Julia Swanson is a multidisciplinary artist and award winning photographer who is the creator of The Art Walk Project, a series of self-guided micro tours.Finally, we get a jump on what is known as the “Met Gala of Massachusetts.” Queer Art +Fashion – a fashion show put on by the nonprofit Love Your Labels. They have their Queer AF kick off tonight, looking for models of all sizes and identities to walk the runway. Joshua Croke, president and founder of Love Your Labels, a non-profit that supports queer and transgender youth in Central Massachusetts. -
June 25, 2024 - Boston theatre, Black history in the Gilded Age, and Sebastian Junger
Today on The Culture Show, contributor Joyce Kulhawik goes over the latest plays and movies to take in. She’s an Emmy-award winning arts and entertainment reporter and president of the Boston Theatre Critics Association. From there we enter the Gilded Age. When families such as the Carnegies, Rockefellers, and Vanderbilts expanded their wealth, they needed to spend it. In the summers, they decided to do that in Newport, Rhode Island, creating one of America’s first resort towns by building mansions on the rugged coastline. This is the Gilded Age most people know. But it’s far from the full story. This was also a time of Black prosperity and Newport was a place where African heritage families were an active part of the community.An exhibition at Rosecliff Mansions places Black history in the context of The Gilded Age. It’s on view through the end of the month. Culture show co-host James Bennett II gives us an overview. Finally, Sebastian Junger. He is an author and award-winning journalist whose reporting takes him–and his audiences- into treacherous places. He plunged us into the horrors of commercial fishing by way of his bestselling book, “The Perfect Storm.” Through his reporting and filmmaking he showed us what war looked like, embedding with a US platoon in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. But it is from his home on Cape Cod where he brings us into his most palpable encounter with death–that would be his own death.It’s the subject of his latest book “In My TIme of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife.” -
June 24, 2024 - The Museum of Bad Art, Dirty Old Boston, and BAMSFest
On The Culture Show we talk a lot about museums and their efforts to be more accessible, but that has been the mission of the Museum of Bad Art. Since its inception it’s been free to the public, with wall text that easy to understand –and entertaining, and now that their home is Dorchester Brewing you can even drink a beer while taking in their collection. With MOBA marking its 30th anniversary, Louise Riley Sacco, Permanent Acting Interim Executive Director of the Museum of Bad Art and MOBA’s Curator- in- Chief, Michael Frank join The Culture Show to talk about the making of MOBA, From there it’s “Dirty Old Boston,” the facebook page with a cult following. Jim Bottielli started it in 2012, uploading photos that captured a city slipping away amid development, construction and gentrification. Two years later it became a book. Now this archival photo project is on view at City Winery through June . He joins us to talk about a city in transition.Finally, we get a preview of this year’s BAMSFest–a massive music festival featuring Black and brown artists playing R&B, funk, soul, hip-hop, house and more. Catherine T. Morris, the founder and artistic director of BAMSFest, joins The Culture Show to talk about it. -
June 21, 2024 - Week in Review: Willie Mays, Donald Sutherland, and the Tonys
Today on The Culture Show, co-hosts Callie Crossley, Edgar B. Herwick III and James Bennett II go over the latest arts and culture headlines on our week-in-review,First up, start spreading the news. Literally. France has opened its first museum of cheese, honoring dairy excellence from their famous cheeses to their traditional cheese makers. From there we reflect on the legacy of Willie Mays - the 'Say Hey Kid' who was considered baseball's best all-around player, and speaking of MVP’s, we consider Jaylen Brown’s role as the athlete activist.From there it’s Donald Sutherland, the towering actor whose off-kilter screen presence spanned decades of movies, from “M.A.S.H.” to “The Hunger Games.”Then we recap the Tony awards, from the snubs, surprises and usual suspects.And we top it all off with a cherry–that is centuries-old boozy cherries discovered at Mount Vernon.That and more is next on The Culture Show’s week-in-review. Stay with us. -
June 20, 2024 - Audra McDonald and Leslie Odom Jr.
Summertime, and the living is easy. Or, if you’re Audra McDonald, you make it look and sound easy. The award winning singer and actor earned her fifth – of a record-breaking six– Tony awards for her portrayal of Bess in the Broadway hit “The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess,” which was mounted right here at The American Repertory Theater. The Culture Show caught up with McDonald when she was in Boston for a one-night only performance.Then it’s another star of the stage Leslie Odom, Jr. His portrayal of Aaron Burr in “Hamilton,” gave us a new way to think about America’s historyAnd if history doesn’t repeat itself, it rhymes. In his latest return to Broadway, Odom starred in a play that skewers racism in America. He joined The Culture Show ahead of a one-man show in Boston to talk about how music remains at his core. -
June 19, 2024 - Tracy K. Smith and Phyllis Wheatley
Through her poetry, Tracy K. Smith probes the meaning of life, she meditates on what happens to our souls when we die, she communes with the dead. She uses poetry to explore her own role in the world as a mother, making the personal profound. Her poems also scrutinize historical racial oppression, the paradox that is the American dream, and the injustices that plague our nation. All of these themes come together in her new book, “To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul.” She joins The Culture Show to talk about it. In 1761 a young girl crossed the Atlantic on a slave ship. Captured in West Africa, she arrived in Boston where she was purchased by John and Susanna Wheatley. They named her Phillis, after the name of the slave ship that brought her to America. They taught Phillis to read and write. Able to express herself on the page, she went on to become the first African American to publish a book of poetry. Wheatley traveled to England to promote the volume and on her voyage back to America she wrote the poem, “Ocean.”The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture recently acquired this rare, handwritten manuscript along with a trove of other texts that shed light on the life –and the life of the mind—of Phillis Wheatley. Joining The Culture Show to talk about what is the largest collection of Wheatley material in public hands is Kevin Young, the Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. -
June 18, 2024 - Juneteenth and the Mars Symphony
Juneteenth is the annual commemoration marking the end of slavery in the United States. The name is derived from the date June 19, 1865, when Major General Gordon Granger informed a Texas audience that all enslaved persons were now free…that was two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. It’s an important fact to underscore because justice delayed is justice denied. In this context, Kerri Greenidge, Associate Professor in history in the Department of Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora at Tufts University, joins us to talk about how we consider Black history in 2024.From there, we get a preview of the Mars symphony premiere, created in collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Museum of Science. Boston composer David Ibbett, whose score reveals the music of Mars, joins The Culture Show, along with James Monroe, creative director of programming for the Centers for Public Science Learning at the Museum of Science. -
June 17, 2024 - More Than Our Skin and Alan Cumming
In the documentary film “More Than Our Skin,” five women share their stories about what it’s like to live with vitiligo, an autoimmune disease in which the skin loses its pigment cells, resulting in discolored patches throughout the body. As the film details, while the disease can’t kill you, it can kill your spirit as people with vitiligo are more prone to depression, social stigmatization and isolation. Tonia Magras, the producer and director of the film, and Valarie Molyneaux, one of the women featured in this documentary, join The Culture Show to talk about their work.From there it’s Alan Cumming. He’s an actor, singer, and advocate who has starred on Broadway, on network television and now he’s hosting and producing the reality TV series streaming on Peacock, “The Traitors.” However, he is no traitor to his demographic. At age 59 Alan Cumming is a font of wisdom when it comes to America’s obsession with the fountain of youth—breaking down how abstract and absurd ageism is in his cabaret show, “Alan Cumming is Not Acting His Age”. He joins The Culture Show to talk about this and a tote bag epidemic, which he says is perpetuated by NPR pledge drives. -
June 14, 2024 - Week in Review: Jay-Z, Jerry West, and the Kendrick craze
Today on The Culture Show co-hosts Callie Crossley, James Bennett II and Edgar B. Herwick III cover the latest headlines on our arts and culture week-in-review.First up, greatness recognizes greatness. Who surprised Tom Brady at his Patriots Hall of Fame Ceremony with a pop up performance? JAY-Z.And onto another sports Hall of Famer: Jerry West. We remember the LA Lakers legend whose silhouette inspired the NBA’s iconic logoFrom there, it’s an accidental all-star. Kendrick Lamar, whose track “Not Like Us,” which doubles as a Drake diss, is sweeping sports stadiums across the country.Plus it’s “quiet on the set!” Late Night with Seth Meyers is dropping its live house band amid budget cuts.Finally, it’s follow up Friday, which includes a Battle Royale with protestors vandalizing King Charles’ portrait in the name of animal welfare. -
June 13, 2024 - Salvatore Del Deo and Rebecca Bradshaw
Salvatore Del Deo is a contemporary painter whose 75-year career has been inspired by the light of Provincetown, the landscape, particularly the dunes, and the people who cycle in and out of town.If you don’t know his paintings you likely know his plight.Since the early 1940’s, his part-time home has been a dune shack . But he nearly lost it when the National Parks Service served the Del Deo family an eviction notice. After a lengthy and public fight to stay in the shack –Salvatore and the Del Deo family received a five-year reprieve. He joins The Culture Show to talk about this and his new show at the LaMontagne Gallery.And Rebecca Bradshaw knows the local theater scene. From SpeakEasy Stage to the Huntington and beyond, she’s been a triple threat: producing, directing and developing new work.Now she is bringing her talent and expertise to Gloucester Stage Company. Last year, after a nationwide search, the seaside theater named her its new Artistic Director. She joins The Culture Show to talk about her vision for the company. And its 2024 season which recently kicked off with the comedy Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike playing through June 23rd.
