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New civic center ‘steps’ from Boston’s Embrace sculpture to honor Frederick Douglass
The new hub will be close to Boston Common and the sculpture honoring Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King.
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January 29, 2026 - Donald Nally from The Crossing, the Moby Dick Marathon, and public art in Boston
Donald Nally, founder and conductor of The Crossing, a Grammy-winning ensemble dedicated almost entirely to new music, joins The Culture Show ahead of their performance at Symphony Hall. The Crossing is joining the Boston Symphony Orchestra for a program exploring sacred music in the 21st century. The concert pairs David Lang’s “poor hymnal” with the Boston premiere of Carlos Simon’s “Good News Mass”. To learn more about upcoming performances go here. Culture Show producer Max Chow-Gillette takes inside 25 hours of the 30th Moby-Dick marathon, an annual voyage at the New Bedford Whaling Museum where Melville enthusiasts read the entire novel aloud.Culture Show contributor Julia Swanson takes us downtown for a Public Service Arts Announcement, spotlighting Boston Bricks — bronze reliefs embedded in the sidewalks of Winthrop Lane. An award-winning photographer, multidisciplinary artist and founder of The Art Walk Project, Swanson guides us through this hidden gem of a public art installation that tells Boston’s story from the ground up. -
January 28, 2026 - Wednesday Watch Party: Groundhog Day
Today we’re hitting the snooze button for our Wednesday Watch Party — the show where we revisit the movies that shaped us, and ask if they still hold up. This month Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley and Edgar B. Herwick III are stuck in a time loop with “Groundhog Day.” Released in 1993, the Bill Murray comedy starts as a small-town farce and turns into something stranger and deeper: a romantic comedy about repetition, self-improvement, and what it means to actually change. In 2026 our hosts ask: does it hold up today? And do we get more out of the movie every time we watch it? -
January 27, 2026 - Noelle Trent, Davóne Tines, and Bruno Carvalho
Noelle Trent, President and CEO of the Museum of African American History in Boston and Nantucket, joins us as Black History Month marks its centennial—100 years since Carter G. Woodson launched Negro History Week. She joins us to discuss why this milestone matters now and to give an overview of the museum’s Black History Month programming. To learn more go here. Bass-baritone Davóne Tines joins us ahead of his Boston concert with early-music ensemble Ruckus, “What Is Your Hand in This?”—a genre-hopping exploration of Revolutionary-era hymns and ballads traced through American history. He reflects on his boundary-crossing career in opera and protest music, and how performance can become a form of cultural reckoning. To learn more about the upcoming concert go here.Bruno Carvalho, Harvard professor and co-director of the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative, discusses his new book The Invention of the Future: A History of Cities in the Modern World. He traces how cities—from Rio to Paris to New York—have been shaped by art, politics, and competing visions of modern life, and what urban history reveals about the futures we’re building. You can catch him tonight at Harvard Book Store. -
January 26, 2026 - Preserving the Smithsonian, Max Wolf Friedlich on JOB, and Boston's most beautiful buildings
After the White House ordered a sweeping review of exhibitions and interpretive text at the Smithsonian Institution, historians launched an unprecedented public documentation effort. Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian recruits volunteers to photograph artifacts, wall labels, and explanatory text across museums—creating a time-stamped, independent archive they call a “Crowd to Cloud” record. Co-founder Chandra Manning joins us to explain how the project works, and why preserving the public record matters now. Chandra Manning is a Professor of U.S.History at Georgetown University, a best-selling author and a former National Park Service Ranger. Max Wolf Friedlich’s high-pressure play, “JOB” is set entirely inside a mandatory therapy session between a content moderator and a company-appointed counselor. Now in Boston. Friedlich joins us to unpack how “JOB” explores power, surveillance, and mental health in the modern workplace. “JOB” is presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company, onstage through Feb7 at Roberts Studio Theatre, Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts. To learn more go here.Who decides what makes a building beautiful—the jury, or the public? Voting is now open for the Boston Society for Architecture’s Harleston Parker People’s Choice Award, where the public weighs in on the same finalists considered for the historic Harleston Parker Medal. Paige Johnston, the BSA's Senior Director of Programs & Impact, joins us to talk about this year’s finalists and what they reveal about how Greater Boston thinks about design. To learn more go here. -
January 23, 2026 - Week in Review: Oscar nominations, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and Green Day at the Super Bowl
On this edition of The Culture Show, Culture Show co-hosts Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley and Edgar B. Herwick III go over the latest headlines on our arts and culture week-in-review.First up, awards season. The Oscar race is underway, with “Sinners” leading with 16 nominations and major snubs including “Wicked: For Good” and stars Paul Mescal and George Clooney. The Razzies roasted flops like “Snow White” and “The Electric State,” while the Public Domain Film Remix Awards spotlighted artists reinventing newly public-domain classics from “All Quiet on the Western Front” to “Betty Boop” and “Nancy Drew.:And Williamstown Theatre Festival is taking a summer season off as it retools its artistic and financial model, with plans to move toward a biennial schedule. The pause raises broader questions about sustainability, funding, and the future of regional theater in the U.S.From there, Green Day is set to open the Super Bowl ceremony, bringing anti-establishment punk to one of the most mainstream stages in American television. Bad Bunny is also fueling Super Bowl buzz with a newly released trailer for his halftime show.Plus, the Songwriters Hall of Fame announced its 2026 inductees, including Taylor Swift, Alanis Morissette, and Kiss’s Gene Simmons, honoring the architects behind decades of hits across genres and generations.Finally, it’s our week in preview with host recommendations for the weekend. Jared’s pick is the movie “H is for Hawk,” Callie’s offering is Candlelight Concerts: The Best of Hans Zimmer.and Edgar recommends the “Beasts of Burren Rolling Stones tribute in honor of photographer, Charles Daniels” at The Burren.
