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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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June 5, 2026 - Week in Review: Horror films, Taylor Swift's Toy Story tune, and Euphoria
This week on The Culture Show, Callie Crossley is joined by Culture Show contributor Lisa Simmons and GBH global correspondent and news host Jeremy Siegel for a look at the week’s top arts and culture headlines. YouTubers are turning online followings into theatrical ticket sales, with internet-born horror films like Backrooms and Obsession making the case for a new route to the multiplex.Younger audiences are showing up for films that feel connected to the online conversation, raising the question of whether Gen Z is saving theaters or changing what gets them there.From Martin Scorsese’s AI storyboards to an AI actress, AI opera experiments and Amazon’s generative-AI animated series, artists are debating where the technology helps and where it threatens human craft.Clint Eastwood may be retiring from filmmaking, Euphoria has ended after three seasons, Serena Williams is headed back to the court and Jay-Z returned to the stage at Roots Picnic.The show remembers Peabo Bryson, the velvet-voiced R&B balladeer and two-time Grammy winner who gave Disney two of its signature love songs. -
June 4, 2026 - "Fairyland," John Carter Cash, and Baking from Poland and Beyond.
After her mother’s death, writer Alysia Abbott was raised by her father—poet Steve Abbott—in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury during the height of counterculture. Her memoir “Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father” captures that vivid, unconventional childhood and the complexities of growing up amid both liberation and loss. Now adapted into a feature film produced by Sofia Coppola, Abbott joins us to reflect on seeing her story come to life on screen. As the only son of Johnny Cash and June Carter, John Carter Cash has carried forward one of America’s most enduring musical legacies. A Grammy-winning producer, songwriter, and author, he’s worked with artists from Willie Nelson to Sheryl Crow while preserving his parents’ archives and spirit. He joins The Culture Show to talk about his latest book, The Complete Johnny Cash: Lyrics from a Lifetime of Songwriting, which gathers more than five decades of his father’s words—offering insight into the man behind the Man in Black.Finally Berlin-based baker Laurel Kratochvila joins the Culture SHow to talk about her cookbook Dobre Dobre: Baking from Poland and Beyond. The book celebrates Poland’s baking traditions — from Jewish-diasporic classics to regional favorites — and reveals how migration and memory live on in every recip -
June 3, 2026 - Bob Odenkirk 's "Normal, Geoff Bennett's "Black Out Loud," and Lebanese Baking
Actor Bob Odenkirk and writer Derek Kolstad reunite after the Nobody films for Normal, a twisted neo-Western about a bank robbery that shatters the facade of a seemingly quiet small town. Geoff Bennett, co-anchor and co-managing editor of PBS NewsHour, joins The Culture Show to discuss his new book, Black Out Loud: The Revolutionary History of Black Comedy from Vaudeville to ’90s Sitcoms. Bennett traces the long arc of Black comedy, from minstrelsy and vaudeville to Richard Pryor, In Living Color, and Living Single. For Maureen Abood, baking is a way of carrying culture, memory, and family tradition forward. She joins Jared to talk about her new cookbook, “Lebanese Baking,” and what its recipes reveal about Lebanese life at home and around the table. You can catch her tonight at 6:00 for a tasting and book signing event at Sofra Bakery + Cafe in Allston. To learn more go here. -
June 2, 2026 - Patti Smith, a new translation of "The Odyssey," and three-time U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky
Patti Smith, National Book Award–winning author of “Just Kids,” joins The Culture Show to discuss her latest memoir, “Bread of Angels.” The book traces her imaginative postwar childhood, her life with Fred “Sonic” Smith, and the years of loss and renewal that shaped her return to writing and performance. Daniel Mendelsohn—Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities at Bard College, and frequent contributor of essays to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books where he is Editor-at-Large—discusses his new translation of Homer's “The Odyssey.” Three-time U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky joins The Culture Show to talk about retiring from Boston University where he has been a professor since 1989. -
June 1, 2026 - Ethan Hawke, Anthony Amore, and "Dorie's Anytime Cakes"
Ethan Hawke has built one of the most varied careers in contemporary film, spanning Hollywood classics like Dead Poets Society and Training Day, as well as independent films such as Before Sunrise and Boyhood. He’s also an accomplished novelist, screenwriter, producer, and filmmaker. He joined us ahead of receiving the 2025 Coolidge Corner Theatre Award.Few people know more about art theft than Anthony Amore. As Director of Security and Chief Investigator at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, he’s spent decades pursuing the truth behind its legendary 1990 heist. His new book, “The Rembrandt Heist: The Story of a Criminal Genius, a Stolen Masterpiece, and an Enigmatic Friendship,” revisits another one of Boston’s great art crimes — the 1975 theft of a Rembrandt from the MFA — and the larger-than-life thief who pulled it off, Myles Connor.And five-time James Beard Award winner Dorie Greenspan brings sweetness (and some savoriness) to the everyday with her new cookbook “Dorie’s Anytime Cakes” — filled with loaves, Bundts and snackable slices.
