Boston's Company One Theatre has entered its 25th season, and the season kicked off with big news — shows are now entirely pay-what-you-can. Theatregoers can now attend performances for free, or contribute what they're able to; it's a model that GBH News Executive Arts Editor and The Culture Show host Jared Bowen has gotten behind. Today on the show, Company One co-founders Shawn LaCount and Summer L. Williams join Bowen to discuss what it takes to make theater more accessible.
Then, it's off to Harvard. Among the English courses being offered at the university this semester, there’s “Sex, Gender and Shakespeare,” an exploration of British romantic poetry titled “Keats Isn't Dead,” and a course that goes deep on Swift. No, not the satirist Jonathan Swift, but the singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. In a class titled “Taylor Swift and Her World,” Professor Stephanie Burt is bringing an analytical approach to the lyrics of Taylor Swift, her musical precursors and other writers who are Swift’s literary kindred spirits. We’ll talk to her about why she loves Swift’s music and what it means to bring academic rigor to the Taylor Swift era.
Finally, a final call for local artists. Julie-Anne Whitney of the Mount Auburn Cemetery joins the show to talk about the organization's artist-in-residence program, applications for which close on Feb. 1.
