Arts Podcasts

The first person draws an irregular line across a wall. The next tries to copy it; each person after that copies the line immediately above. In A Piece of Work’s The Writing on the Wall, Abbi Jacobson watches students make a shared artwork by carrying out Sol LeWitt’s instructions. The question arrives almost before the drawing does: whose work is this? You can follow the procedure without seeing the wall.

That is one of the pleasures of arts listening now: the distance between a finished object and the decisions behind it can shrink to a few minutes. An interview lets a maker explain a choice; criticism tests what it achieved. A documentary follows the people who made it possible, while a reading gives you the work itself. The arguments around these formats matter when choosing a show. Does book talk send you back to the page, or satisfy your curiosity without it? Does video clarify a visual subject?

Stay with the artist’s decision

An artist interview earns attention when it gets past the story of becoming an artist. On The Modern Art Notes Podcast, Tyler Green asks Brian Rochefort how much of a sculpture is clay and how much is glaze. In Brian Rochefort, Rauschenberg sculpture, Rochefort explains his controlled application of pigmented clay, then recalls taking a hammer to sculptures whose shapes disappointed him. Breaking them open and turning them over suggested another way forward. Dissatisfaction leads to an action, which changes the object.

Talk Art offers a different intimacy in Nick Willing on Paula Rego. Rego’s son explains how she used drawings and handmade models, including a model of a friend that continued appearing in pictures after his death. He also recalls her saying she would choose freedom from depression over artistic greatness. That recollection gives the discussion of her illness a necessary boundary. The studio tour moves between objects and family memory; listeners seeking sustained analysis of a single work may prefer Green’s questioning. Continue through the Visual Arts hub and Artist Interviews & Practice page.

Read alongside an argument

Books podcasts ask for different kinds of company. The New Yorker: Poetry lets a guest’s reading establish the sounds that Kevin Young and the poet will discuss. In Maya C. Popa Reads Brenda Shaughnessy, Popa follows the repeated “less” sound in Shaughnessy’s poem and explains how that constraint prompts invented words. Young hears heartbreak alongside the playfulness. Their exchange makes form audible, though the discussion of line lengths gains another dimension with the poem in front of you.

For a longer stretch of guided reading, The Literary Life Podcast’s How to Read Shakespeare recommends reading aloud and using scene summaries to reduce confusion. Its hosts interpret dramatic structure through a framework that includes Christian imagery; that perspective shapes the conversation. The Literature hub, Book Reviews & Criticism page and Poetry page offer further routes.

Follow clothes into cultural history

Fashion history can begin with a garment and end far from the wardrobe. Articles of Interest’s Betty & Veronica follows the clothes in Archie comics, with Avery Trufelman and Jasmine Aguilera arguing for their importance to young readers’ fashion imaginations. The episode connects cartoonist Dan DiCarlo’s interest in clothing to his wife Josie and her work at a makeup counter. Cartoonist Kayla E. describes comics as requiring one person to supply sets, acting and costumes. Clothing becomes part of how a drawn world persuades us.

Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud takes dress toward personal history. In Lynne Ramsay, Ramsay recalls making hats from bandages and a bikini bottom and describes fighting to make Ratcatcher with collaborators who had never made a feature. The conversation crosses between dressing oneself and constructing a film. Explore further in the Fashion & Beauty hub, Fashion History & Culture page or Personal Style page.

Understand the room

Architecture becomes easier to hear when someone explains what living in it requires. Monocle on Design’s The rise and rise of Brazilian design with Jig. Plus: touring the Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht. includes a house tour that stresses the daily effort of reconsidering how to use the space. The building emerges as a proposition its resident must keep working with.

The Urbanist (Monocle) brings that question into collective decisions. In North America’s fastest-growing city: How Toronto is taking shape, architect Les Klein recalls proposing brick for a development, then hearing from Matthew Hickey that brick meant residential schools to his community. Klein describes learning to slow the process down. The exchange gives material selection a history that a photograph alone would not explain. The Architecture hub is the next stop.

Take a technique back to your own work

Practical arts listening need not promise a complete lesson. VS (Poetry Foundation)’s Khadijah Queen vs. Intuition offers one usable account of revision: Queen says reading her poems aloud led her to remove punctuation, while ampersands supplied a visual connection she liked. She also explains why a memoir required years of waiting and decisions about what to leave out. Craft includes the right to withhold.

In The Rev Craft Biz Podcast’s Choosing the Rules to Follow - with Chawne Kimber, Kimber describes learning to sew because she needed formal dresses and her mother would buy only one each year. A bolt of satin becomes an opportunity to practise. These conversations reward listeners who like thinking through a process. Continue in the Writing, Crafts and Creative Process hubs.

Hear what the stage asks of people

Anything Goes puts songs beside recollections of their construction. In Alan Menken I, Paul Lazarus asks why a dental-office number was dropped from Little Shop of Horrors. Menken’s answer is that it was unnecessary. Elsewhere, he remembers an actor’s low note ending with a collapse that knocked music from his piano. The Musical Theater & Broadway page is a natural continuation.

Stageworthy keeps that practical attention in present-day theatre work. In Bryn Kennedy is Wearing Many Hats in Toronto's Indie Theatre Scene, Kennedy explains how a sunken playing area and surrounding walkway helped her imagine staging The Moors. A room solves a problem in the script. The Theater & Stage page and Performing Arts hub take that interest further.

For dancers’ accounts of artistic authority, The Turning: Room of Mirrors offers The Swans of Harlem | Part One. Lydia Abarca remembers the discomfort of being asked to dance at fundraising parties and the gap between professional recognition and what she could afford to give her parents. In The Swans of Harlem | Part Two, Sheila Rohan describes racing for the ferry after rehearsals to get home to family responsibilities. Their recollections bring wages, care and personal limits into ballet history. Continue through the Ballet & Dance page.

Let a voice carry the work

Sometimes the next listen should ask you to follow a story rather than discuss one. Selected Shorts’ Extended Families pairs Zadie Smith’s encounter with a dead mother outside a chicken shop with Richard Bausch’s story of a grandfather caring for his granddaughter. Meg Wolitzer frames the readings and returns afterward to consider their different ideas of family.

The Moth makes the storyteller’s relationship with a live audience part of the experience. In Cents and Sensibility: The Moth Radio Hour, Steve Zimmer remembers sorting pennies with his father in near silence, broken by announcements of a find. Other stories address childhood hunger and losing possessions in a flood. The movement from jokes to difficult memories makes this an hour to choose with some emotional attention available. Its stories are presented as remembered and affirmed by their tellers.

Where to start

• For verse in translation: Poetry Unbound — Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Haleh Liza Gafori. Gafori recites Persian verse, discusses its repeated sounds and explains why her translations pursue English’s own music.
• For a first gallery visit: A Piece of Work — The Writing on the Wall. A procedure you can picture opens questions about authorship without requiring art-history vocabulary.
• For clothes with a backstory: Articles of Interest — Betty & Veronica. Follow the people who helped put the outfits on the page.
• For backstage mechanics: Anything Goes — Alan Menken I. Songs and questions about cuts introduce musical-theatre craft through an archival interview.
• For an evening of fiction: Selected Shorts — Extended Families. Two contrasting family stories offer a complete listening occasion, with readings taking precedence over discussion.

Afterward, you might notice the pause before a joke, or wonder who chose the brick outside your window. That is plenty to begin with.

Featured shows below are part of the PlayNext catalog. Updated weekly.