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Exclusive: BSO President Chad Smith defends decision to oust Andris Nelsons
In his first broadcast interview, Smith told GBH’s The Culture Show that the decision to part ways with Nelsons stems from "a need for alignment."
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May 29, 2026 - Bobbi Brown, Donnie Wahlberg, and Chef Aidan McGee
Bobbi Brown built a beauty empire on simplicity and self-expression. She joins The Culture Show to talk about her new book “Still Bobbi,” where she lays bare her lessons for reinvention, resilience, and redefining beauty on her own terms.From there, actor, singer and entrepreneur Donnie Wahlberg. Familiar to millions as “Blue Bloods’” Detective Danny Reagan, he spent fourteen seasons solving crimes in New York City. Now Danny Reagan is back — but this time, he’s doing it Boston-style. “Blue Bloods” followed a multi-generational law-enforcement family. In "Boston Blue," Wahlberg once again steps into Reagan’s shoes — this time moving the New York detective to Wahlberg’s own hometown. He joins The Culture Show to talk about a new chapter in the “Blue Bloods” universe and about his homecoming. Finally, McGonagle’s Pub landed a spot on “The New York Times” list of America’s best restaurants, making it the first Irish pub to get this national recognition. Chef Aidan McGee joins The Culture Show to talk about how he is reimagining pub fare. Aidan McGee is the chef patron of The Dubliner and McGonagle's Pu -
May 28, 2026 - Live from New York: Derrick Adams and Melissa Errico's Back to Barbara
Artist Derrick Adams joins us to discuss Derrick Adams: View Master, his first major museum survey, now on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art. The exhibition brings together more than 100 works from the past 25 years — paintings, sculpture, collage, video, performance and public projects — celebrating Black life, leisure and everyday joy. To learn more go here.Tony Award nominee Melissa Errico joins us to talk about Back to Barbra, her new cabaret show with pianist and music director Billy Stritch at 54 Below. A follow-up to The Streisand Effect, the show returns to Barbra Streisand’s music as a conversation about influence, performance and how one singer makes another icon’s songs her own. To learn more go here. Tickets for the May 29 livestream are available here. -
May 27, 2026 - Live from New York City: Marc Shaiman and Steve Locke
Today on The Culture Show, we're joined by Marc Shaiman, the award-winning composer and lyricist whose work runs from When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle to Hairspray, Smash and Mary Poppins Returns, joins us with his new memoir, Never Mind the Happy. Before the Tonys, the Oscars and the Broadway openings, he was a teenager haunting community theaters, a young musician swept into Bette Midler’s world, and creating a career that would move through the devastation of AIDS, the machinery of Hollywood and the bruising, and thrilling business of making musicals. On June 9th, he'll be at Broadway in Worcester for "An Evening with Mark Shaiman." For tickets and more information, click here.Then artist Steve Locke joins us with his first career monograph,I Said What I Said, a new book featuring three decades of work in painting, sculpture and public art. From portraiture to public memory, Locke’s work confronts race, desire, and history — and asks what America is willing to look at. -
May 26, 2026 - Danielle Allen, Eve Plumb, and Matthew Shifrin on blind athletics
Today on The Culture Show, Danielle Allen, the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at Harvard Kennedy School, joins us to discuss her New York Times essay, “Nothing Beats Polarization Like Civics Education” She is the author of Our Declaration and the forthcoming Radical Duke: How One Aristocrat — and the American Revolution — Transformed Britain.Eve Plumb, best known as Jan Brady on The Brady Bunch, joins us to discuss her new memoir, Happiness Included: Jan Brady and Beyond. She’ll be at First Parish Church in Cambridge on June 4 at 7 p.m. for a Harvard Book Store signing of Happiness Included.Matthew Shifrin, founder and CEO of Bricks for the Blind, joins us for “AI: Actual Intelligence” with a look at sports and accessibility. From tennis to cricket to rock climbing, Shifrin explores how adaptations to familiar games can be literally game-changing for blind athletes. -
May 25, 2026 - Keith Lockhart, Revolutionary Artists, and Paul Revere's Sons of Liberty Bowl
Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart was recently honored with the Third Lantern Award at Old North Church, recognizing his role in using music to connect civic life and shared memory. As the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, he joins The Culture Show to reflect on the power of orchestral music at historic moments. Zara Anishanslin joins The Culture Show to talk through her latest book “The Painter’s Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists Who Championed the American Revolution.” Zara Anishanslin is a Professor of History and Art History at the University of Delaware. As part of Countdown to 2026, we explore Paul Revere’s Sons of Liberty Bowl, crafted in 1768 to honor a Massachusetts vote rejecting new British taxes. Engraved with the names of lawmakers who opposed those measures, it’s a key artifact of early resistance. Ethan Lasser, Chief of Curatorial Affairs and Conservation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, joins us for an overview. To learn more about the Sons of Liberty Bowl and the MFA’s exhibitions and programming go here.
