Episodes
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August 10, 2026 - Emily Ruddock, Carl Sprinchorn Exhibition, and Big Little Books with a French 75 Twist
Federal arts funding cuts are hitting New England organizations in jobs, programs and dollars. Emily Ruddock, executive director of MASSCreative, joins Jared to discuss a new regional survey of 125 arts and cultural organizations, which reports $13.5 million in lost or unavailable funding and more than 700 jobs affected.Swedish-born modernist Carl Sprinchorn found inspiration in the Maine woods, painting the lumberjacks, hunters and laborers who lived and worked there. Devon Zimmerman, curator at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art, discusses the major new exhibition Carl Sprinchorn: All the World is a Painting, which reconsiders the artist through the lenses of immigration, sexuality, masculinity and American modernism.BIG LITTLE BOOKS returns with a twist. Jill Medvedow and cocktail icon Jackson Cannon join Jared to discuss John Maxwell Hamilton’s The French 75, a spirited history of the iconic cocktail, from its World War I origins through a century of legend and reinvention. Cannon, beverage director for ES Hospitality, brings the cocktail history out of the book and into the glass. On August 20 Jackson Cannon will be throwing a Garden Party Dinner at Standard Italian. To learn more go here. -
August 7, 2026 - Week in Review: Ariana Grande, an AI summer camp, and John Cage's long awaited chord change
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.Ariana Grande plans to step back from public life after her Eternal Sunshine tour, following years of scrutiny over her body and health. Can a celebrity ever truly reclaim her privacy?A new MASSCreative survey finds New England arts groups lost $11.4 million in federal funding, affecting 486 jobs and forcing cuts to programs and public services.Live Nation-owned Veeps has laid off nearly all staff at BrooklynVegan, Alternative Press, Revolver and Goldmine, shrinking the music press that helps emerging artists find an audience.Fans buying albums from Charli xcx, Olivia Rodrigo and others are finding missing passages, early mixes and absent guest stars—the result of physical copies going into production before the music is finished.John Cage’s As Slow as Possible changed a chord for the first time in two and a half years. The 639-year performance at a German church is scheduled to end in 2640. -
August 6, 2026 - Cellist Matt Haimovitz, Claudia Rankine on "Triage," and The Great Elephant Migration
Cellist Matt Haimovitz discusses Neighbors, a three-track EP created after federal immigration operations brought fear and protest to his new home in the Twin Cities. Recorded with University of Minnesota students and colleagues, the project includes a reimagining of Ernest Bloch’s “Prayer” incorporating the words of Minneapolis activists. Matt Haimovitz is a multi-Grammy-nominated cellist and assistant professor of cello at the University of Minnesota.Claudia Rankine discusses Triage, a genre-defying work that moves among novel, memoir, criticism and visual art. Through two women whose decades-long friendship begins with a game of collapsing to the ground, Rankine examines grief, solidarity, self-protection and the demand to act amid relentless loss. Ruth Ganesh discusses The Great Elephant Migration, which brings one hundred life-size elephant sculptures to Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue Mall. Indigenous artisans in southern India made the herd from lantana, an invasive plant threatening elephant habitat. The free installation runs August 8 through September 13 and explores how humans and wildlife can share the planet -
August 5, 2026 - Dylan Gottlieb's "Yuppies," Natalie Lemle's "Artifacts," and Plays in Place with Patrick Gabridge
Historian Dylan Gottlieb discusses Yuppies: The Bankers, Lawyers, Joggers, and Gourmands Who Conquered New York, which traces how ambitious young bankers, lawyers and other professionals made Wall Street glamorous, reshaped American cities and helped build a culture of punishing work, gentrification and widening inequality. The book was named one of The New Yorker’s best books of 2026 so far.Writer and visual art advisor Natalie Lemle discusses her debut novel, Artifacts. The story follows a trusts-and-estates lawyer drawn into a dispute over a Roman glass cup that Italy says was illegally removed—and back to the archaeological dig, relationships and unanswered questions she left behind two decades earlier.Plays in Place producing artistic director Patrick Gabridge previews four site-specific productions exploring the conflicts and unfinished promises of the American Revolution. The plays include Loyalty or Liberty in Newport, A Stake in the Ground: 1774 at Historic Deerfield, The Slippery Truth at Connecticut’s Old New-Gate Prison and The Hull/Hawley Playsat Historic Northampton. -
August 4, 2026 - Paul Giamatti and John Turturro on Rhinoceros, Cookie Queens, and Jazz Urbane Cafe
Paul Giamatti and John Turturro discuss the American Repertory Theater’s production of Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinoceros.Directed by Diane Paulus, the darkly comic play follows a town whose residents surrender their humanity and join the herd. The production runs August 14 through September 27 at the Loeb Drama Center in Cambridge. To learn more go here.Director Alysa Nahmias discusses Cookie Queens, a new documentary following four Girl Scouts, ages five to twelve, through the ambition, competition and family commitment of cookie season. The film examines what girls learn while navigating an $800 million business and opens in theaters nationwide on August 7.Composer and educator Bill Banfield takes us inside Jazz Urbane Cafe, a new 200-seat music venue and restaurant in Nubian Square. Banfield explains how Jazz Urbane grew from a performing collective and record label into a permanent home for Boston musicians to share the stage with nationally recognized artists. -
August 3, 2026 - TV Goes to the Movies at the Brattle, Boston's sporty public art, and Dear Evan Hansen
The Brattle Theatre’s TV Goes to the Movies series explores how filmmakers have portrayed television news, corporate power and journalistic ambition. Boston Globe critic Chris Vognar previews a lineup that includes Network, Broadcast News, The Insider, Nightcrawler and Anchorman. The series runs August 5 through September 2.Culture Show contributor Julia Swanson shares public spaces where art, play and community can keep Boston’s World Cup energy going after the games. Swanson created The Art Walk Project, a collection of self-guided tours exploring murals, sculptures and installations across Greater Boston and beyond.Duxbury native Mickey White discusses Harbour Lights Theatre and its effort to bring New York theatre professionals together with Massachusetts artists. The actor, producer and artistic director launches the company’s mainstage work with Dear Evan Hansen, directed by Adam Pascal and running August 6 through 9 at the Carr Amphitheater in Hingham. -
July 31, 2026 - BTS snubs the Grammys, sad girl summer, and Zendaya's ancient earrings
This week on The Culture Show, Jared Bowen is joined by Co-host Callie Crossley and Culture Show Culture Show contributor Joyce Kulhawik. Joyce Kulhawik is an Emmy-award winning arts and entertainment reporter and President of the Boston Theatre Critics Association.The topics they discuss include: BTS pulled its comeback album, Arirang, from the Grammy race to protest the new Best Asian Pop Music Performance category. The group argues that separating Asian pop from the general field marginalizes the artists it claims to recognize. New releases from Olivia Rodrigo, Gracie Abrams, Ariana Grande and Charli xcx trade carefree summer anthems for songs about heartbreak, anxiety and political dread. Four Winds Craft Guild posted a tongue-in-cheek ban on influencers, only to watch the sign go viral. The ensuing dispute drew responses from creators, residents and critics far beyond the island. Barbara Lynch, the acclaimed Boston chef, will host two private dinners in Manchester-by-the-Sea as she develops a new venture. The events mark Lynch’s first major step back into dining after her restaurant group closed amid allegations of workplace abuse, which she has denied. Artist Robert Lazzarini and curator John Ravenal will debut History Maker at the MassArt Art Museum this fall. The exhibition, originally selected for the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, reworks familiar American symbols including flags, George Washington and a toppled eagle. -
July 30, 2026 - Angela Peri and Lisa Lobel on casting Widow's Bay, Mary Grant, and Bones of the Statue of Liberty
Angela Peri and Lisa Lobel discuss finding the New England faces who populate Apple TV’s horror comedy Widow’s Bay. Their work on the series earned them their first Emmy nominations for Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series.MassArt President Mary Grant returns for “AI: Actual Intelligence,” our recurring series featuring original, algorithm-free ideas from some of the region’s most interesting thinkers. This month, Grant discusses the continued scrutiny of the Smithsonian museum, the resurgence of “grandma hobbies,” and more.Mary’s Summer Reading + Watchlist: Theo of Golden by Allen Levi Bread of Angels by Patti Smith How to Get to Heaven from Belfast on Netflix Remarkably Bright Creatures on Netflix Curator David Bettencourt introduces Bones of the Statue of Liberty, an exhibition at Belcourt of Newport featuring lamps, pedestal railings and a massive elevator cog removed during the monument’s 1984–1986 restoration. The objects reveal the engineering beneath the statue’s copper exterior and the generations of work required to keep it standing, shining and accessible. -
July 29, 2026 - Wednesday Watch Party - Terminator 2: Judgement Day
For this month’s Wednesday Watch Party, Jared Bowen is joined by Culture Show co-host Callie Crossley, host of GBH’s Under the Radar with Callie Crossley, and Joyce Kulhawik, the Emmy Award-winning arts and entertainment reporter and president of the Boston Theater Critics Association, to revisit James Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Thirty-five years after its release, the film’s imagined 2029 is now just three years away. The conversation considers how its vision of artificial intelligence looks from 2026, whether the sequel surpassed the original, and how the digital breakthrough that helped define the film compares with the AI now reshaping Hollywood. -
July 28, 2026 - Emily Wilson on The Odyssey, Kevin Nealon, and Laurie Anderson
Emily Wilson, professor and chair of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses how her acclaimed translation of The Odyssey helped shape Christopher Nolan’s approach to Homer’s hero. Nolan singled out Wilson’s opening line—“Tell me about a complicated man”—as a key reference point for the film. Wilson considers what the blockbuster preserves or leaves behind as it brings the ancient epic to the screen, and why her translations of The Odyssey and The Iliad have transformed the way modern readers encounter Homer. Her forthcoming book is Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys Through Ancient Literature.Kevin Nealon looks back on helping define a memorable era of Saturday Night Live, his eight seasons on Weeds and the unpredictable celebrity conversations of Hiking with Kevin. He also discusses returning to stand-up with his latest special, Loose in the Crotch, ahead of his August 1 performance at the Wilbur.Laurie Anderson, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient who carried New York’s experimental downtown into the pop charts, concert halls and major museums around the world, discusses a Berkshire summer that spans the full range of her groundbreaking career in music, performance, film, storytelling and technology. She has added new work to her long-term MASS MoCA installation and makes her Tanglewood debut with Amelia and What War Is This? on August 13, the Lou Reed Drone on August 16 and The Republic of Love that evening.
