About this episode
What if a Musical Could Help us Tell the Truth About Climate Change?In this episode, Bill Cleveland sits down with theater director Emily Hartford and composer–storyteller Ned Hardford to explore Metra: A Climate Revolution with Songs—a nine-episode musical audio drama that reimagines an ancient Greek myth as a near-future climate story.What starts as a conversation about craft opens into deeper territory: imagination as resistance, music as pedagogy, and why genuinely new stories don’t come from algorithms—they come from people doing long, human work together.In it, we explore three big questions at the heart of Metra and the moment we’re living in now:How music, story, and the human voice reach places that facts, lectures, and policy arguments can’tWhat it looks like to tell a climate story without fear-mongering or “disaster porn,”How artists can build work that others can actually use,—turning art-making into cultural infrastructure rather than a one-off production.Listen in to discover how art, music, and story can help us practice a different future—and why Metra just might be the kind of narrative infrastructure we need right now.PeopleBill ClevelandHost of Change the Story / Change the World and founder of the Center for the Study of Art & Community.Emily HartfordTheater director, writer, and producer; founding member of Flux Theater Ensemble and co-creator of Metra.Ned HartfordComposer, songwriter, audio engineer, and co-creator of Metra, focused on musical storytelling and audio drama.Alan LomaxFolklorist and field-recording pioneer whose work capturing the emotional power of the human voice is referenced in the episode.Enoch RutherfordOld-time banjo player recorded by Alan Lomax in Virginia; referenced through a story of lineage, listening, and musical transmission.
