May 21, 2026 - Imari Paris Jeffries, Geoffrey Kelly on Thirteen Perfect Fugitives, and Edmonia Lewis at the PEM

July 9, 2026 - Judy Collins, Betrayal at Gloucester Stage Company, and First Peoples, First Stories

Judy Collins [https://www.judycollins.com/] joins us ahead of her “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: Farewell Tour” [https://www.bso.org/events/collins-carpenter-cash] stop at Tanglewood [https://www.bso.org/tanglewood] on August 30, co-starring Mary Chapin Carpenter and Rosanne Cash, with special guest Amanda Shires. Collins discusses “Both Sides Now,” interpreting other writers’ songs and writing her own material. Rebecca Bradshaw [https://gloucesterstage.com/about/] of Gloucester Stage Company [https://gloucesterstage.com/] joins us to discuss Harold Pinter’s Betrayal [https://gloucesterstage.com/betrayal/], onstage through August 1. The play traces a love triangle in reverse, moving backward through an affair, a marriage and the betrayals between friends. Francene Blythe-Lewis [https://visionmakermedia.org/about/], president and CEO of Vision Maker Media [https://visionmakermedia.org/], joins us to discuss the new PBS limited series First Peoples, First Stories [https://www.pbs.org/show/first-peoples-first-stories/], featuring short films by emerging Native filmmakers about their own communities. Episodes are available through PBS Passport [https://video.wgbh.org/explore/passport/].

July 8, 2026 - Danielle Allen on "Radical Duke," Fenti Fried Chicken, and Pedro Alonzo on Mexico City art

Harvard political theorist Danielle Allen joins us to discuss her new book, Radical Duke: How One Aristocrat — and the American Revolution — Transformed Britain [https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631497551], which traces the mystery of a rare parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence found in England to Charles Lennox, the third Duke of Richmond — a British aristocrat who became one of the American Revolution’s most important allies.  Danielle Allen will be at Harvard Book Store on Monday, July 20 at 7:00. To learn more go here. [https://www.harvard.com/event/danielle-allen26] Boston comedian and writer Joe Fenti [https://linktr.ee/FentiFriedChicken], known online as Fenti Fried Chicken, joins us to talk about turning the MBTA, awkward dates, Boston bars and corporate absurdity into comedy. His new stand-up special, Partner [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEH7VvOZ3Kg], is streaming now on YouTube. Culture Show contributor Pedro Alonzo [https://riyadhart.rcrc.gov.sa/en/curators/pedro-alonzo/] returns with dispatches from Mexico City — from World Cup fever and artisan markets to current museum exhibitions.

July 7, 2026 - Imari Paris Jeffries, Cameron McCloud from Cure for Paranoia, and Jeffrey Seller

Imari Paris Jeffries, president and CEO of Embrace Boston [https://www.embraceboston.org/about/our-team/] and a co-chair of Everyone250 [https://everyone250.org/about/], returns for “AI: Actual Intelligence,” The Culture Show’s monthly, algorithm-free conversation with some of the region’s sharpest thinkers.  Cameron McCloud, frontman, rapper and songwriter for the Dallas hip-hop collective Cure for Paranoia [https://cureforparanoia.com/en-usd/pages/shows], joins The Culture Show after the band won NPR’s 2026 Tiny Desk Contest [https://www.wbur.org/npr/nx-s1-5810210/winner-2026-tiny-desk-contest] with “No Brainer.” The band brings the Tiny Desk Contest On The Road tour to The Sinclair [https://www.sinclaircambridge.com/events/detail/1396934] in Cambridge on Tuesday, July 7, at 8 p.m. Tony-winning Broadway producer Jeffrey Seller joins The Culture Show to discuss Theater Kid [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Theater-Kid/Jeffrey-Seller/9781668064191], his memoir about the life that led him from a childhood outside Detroit to the producer’s chair on Rent, Avenue Q, In the Heights and Hamilton. He also looks ahead to Warriors [https://playbill.com/article/lin-manuel-miranda-and-eisa-davis-warriors-musical-will-open-on-broadway-in-2027], his latest collaboration with Lin-Manuel Miranda, headed to Broadway in 2027.

July 6, 2026 - The Great Gatsby, Elizabeth Strout, and Historic New England

Broadway director Marc Bruni [https://marcbruni.com/the-great-gatsby] joins The Culture Show to talk about The Great Gatsby [https://boston.broadway.com/shows/the-great-gatsby/], the Broadway musical that turns F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story of reinvention, romance and illusion into a Jazz Age stage spectacle. The production comes to Citizens Opera House [https://www.citizensoperahouse.com/] July 7–19 by way of Broadway in Boston [https://boston.broadway.com/]. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Elizabeth Strout [https://www.elizabethstrout.com/] joins us to discuss The Things We Never Say [https://www.elizabethstrout.com/the-things-we-never-say], her latest novel. The book introduces Artie Dam, a high school history teacher whose outwardly ordinary life conceals loneliness, family pain and the truths people cannot quite bring themselves to say. Historic New England [https://www.historicnewengland.org/] president and CEO Vin Cipolla and curator Michelle Tolini Finamore join us to talk about Shoe Stories: Past, Present, Future [https://www.historicnewengland.org/shoestories/], the inaugural exhibition at Historic New England’s new Center for Preservation and Collections [https://haverhillcenter.org/] in Haverhill. The exhibition looks at more than 400 years of shoemaking and design, connecting Haverhill’s “Queen Slipper City” past to contemporary designers, sneakers and the future of sustainable footwear.

July 3, 2026 - Ron Chernow, Tara Roberts, and a Victorian Gothic Thriller

Ron Chernow―prizewinning author of seven books, including the National Book Award winner “The House of Morgan,” the Pulitzer Prize winner “Washington: A Life,” and the George Washington Book Prize winner “Alexander Hamilton”―joins The Culture Show to talk about his new biography “Mark Twain.”     From there we talk to National Geographic Explorer  in Residence Tara Roberts. She joins The Culture Show to talk about her book “Written in the Waters: A memoir of History, Home and Belonging.”  Finally, author JM Varese joins The Culture Show to talk about his latest novel, a Victorian Gothic thriller that is rooted in the real-life Victorian scandal when arsenic was used  to make decorative wallpaper. JM Varese is Director of Outreach for The Dickens Project at UC Santa Cruz.