Metra: A Climate Revolution with Songs – Details, episodes & analysis

We're pleased to share another audio drama we love, which features the creators of METRA!

In this audio dramedy, the world is shaken by the transformations of women into dragons who consume and immolate men. This is Season 1, Episode 1: Ray.

Find the show: https://pod.link/1511981177

Season 1: A tourist from afar tries to understand what, when any woman could literally eat you for lunch, is a guy supposed to do? Who can you trust? 

Season 2: The tourist creates an international incident by bringing home a dragon. 

Season 3: New episodes release on Mondays. 

This Episode features Ray.

Ray was played by Ned Hartford (Massey)

Ray's sound design was by Ned Hartford (Massey)

The Dragoning is written and hosted by Emily Rainbow Davis and produced by Messenger Theatre Company.

The Dragoning Theme is by Scott Ethier

Sound Design by Matt Powell.

Thanks to Shannon Harvey for the artwork.

Hey, Metra listeners! We're so pleased to bring you this conversation that Metra co-creators Ned and Emily recently had with Bill Cleveland on the Art is Change podcast. We talk about the 7-year journey to create the show, our approach to tackling climate catastrophe as a subject matter, the power of music, and much more. Bill is a stellar interviewer, and he also weaves the show through with other delightful pieces of art and inspiration. We hope you'll enjoy!

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:

1. How music, story, and the human voice reach places that facts, lectures, and policy arguments can’t
2. What it looks like to tell a climate story without fear-mongering or “disaster porn,”
3. 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.

Art is Change website

Check out this teaser for another audio drama we love -- Wanderer's Journal, by Timothy Rafael and Lumi Oakes.

Wanderer’s Journal is a fantasy fiction podcast about Marigold and Pluto, and their unlikely friendship formed through a magical journal that links them. Each of them finds a journal, learns that their voice is recorded into it, and can be both read and played back to the other. Unbeknownst to them, they become a part of an ancient mystery, and see the world from new angles. 

Wanderer's Journal is now in its second season; find all episodes wherever you get podcasts--

https://pod.link/1737708682

Listeners, if you're enjoying Metra's take on storytelling-meets-collective action: have we got a show for you. We're thrilled to recommend a non-fiction podcast this week: one that weaves revolutionary stories from real-world justice movements--

What do a textile worker in Delhi, a student in a Palestinian refugee camp, and a farmworker in 1960s California have in common? In the midst of their struggle for freedom, they all turned to theatre.

Performing the Revolution is a limited-series podcast that knits these powerful stories together to create a global narrative featuring artists who put everything on the line in the struggle for justice. The series starts in New Delhi, India following Jana Natya Manch (Janam), a 50-year-old street theatre company that performs for India’s working class. It then moves to The Freedom Theatre in The West Bank – where kids fight to define who they are and what they dream about amidst a decades-long occupation – and on to El Teatro Campesino’s legacy of agitating during the historic California grape strikes.

Here is Episode 1; find all the episodes wherever you get podcasts.

https://www.radicalevolution.org/performing-the-revolution

Very excited to introduce this show to Metra listeners -- All Around Science! 

All Around Science is weekly podcast by two huge science fans discussing what’s new and interesting in science. Science is our window into incredible worlds, from impossibly small atoms to impossibly distant stars. We want to use it to discover as much as possible, and share it with you every week.

This is episode 220, "The Dirt Beneath Your Feet." Hosts Bobby and Maura talk about a new type of blue-green algae that had been discovered off the coast of Italy (lovingly nicknamed “Chonkus”) which gobbles up CO2 on the surface of the water, and then sinks to the bottom, acting as a (literal) carbon sink. Then, the main topic of the episode is: "What is dirt?" What is it made of? Why is it different in different places? Why does it change as you dig deeper? Is “soil” the same as “dirt”?

So much of what's covered is relevant to our fight for a sustainable climate, and it's all super fascinating to deep dive into. We hope you'll enjoy All Around Science!

Find it wherever you get your podcasts: https://pod.link/1530972643

This is a big favorite of ours, from our friends at Gideon Media!

Find all episodes of Give Me Away, and more info here. 

They call the spaceship that crashed in the Nevada desert “The Ghosthouse” because it screams—the screams of thousands of extraterrestrial political prisoners uploaded into its horrific mainframe. The only way to free them... is to transfer them into the bodies of humans willing to share their minds with an alien second consciousness. But who would volunteer for that? Graham Shapiro, divorced and adrift at age 50, is one of the first to raise his hand. Give Me Away follows Graham’s journey into a world of radical hospitality, one which will touch everything—and everyone—in his life.

Season 1, Episode 5 - Your Body is My Body:

The story of Brooke before Deirdre and Riley before it all went bad. 

Featuring Ato Essandoh, Lori Elizabeth Parquet, Hennessy Winkler, Rebecca Comtois, Alba Ponce de León, Jorge Cordova, Christopher Wilson, and Brian Silliman. Written by Mac Rogers, directed by Jordana Williams, sound designed by Bart Fasbender, music composed by Adam Blau, assistant directed by Marty McGuire, and produced by Cara Ehlenfeldt. Transcripts are available at www.gideon-media.com/transcripts. Gideon Media crafts gripping productions that explore human grace and darkness through popular genre forms. Learn more at www.gideon-media.com and follow us on Twitter @mediagideon, Instagram @gideonaudio, and Facebook @gideonaudio.

Later this spring, MythMakers Media will release Metra - The Cast Album!

Support the creation of the album, and get access to upcoming bonus materials, at ko-fi.com/metrathemusical 

In the meantime, you can be the first to hear the newly remixed and remastered songs, from the comfort of your podcast feed. We're sharing them as they're finished--here's batch 2!

Songs:
“Welcome MythMakers”
“The Myth of Erysicthon Part 1”
“Sam Introduces Aggy”
“Metra’s Mother”
“The Myth of Erysicthon Part 2”
“The Sweet Old Woman’s Theme”

Music and Lyrics by Ned Hartford

Produced by MythMakers Media

Featuring: Jeannette Bayardelle, Cherrye J. Davis, Fred Inkley, Corinna Schulenburg, Alia Munsch, Cristina Obando Sanchez, Sierra Rein

Sound Editing and Design; Instrumentation Arranged and Performed; Vocals Arranged; and all Audio Produced, Engineered, and Mixed by Ned Hartford

Check out our website for ways to join the climate movement: metrathemusical.com/do-something

Look out this spring for info on the Bandcamp release, including special bonus features.

Happy Listening!

The day arrives.

Cori, Sam, Aglaphonos, and Tom are about to intercept their subject and throw him into the Process. Will it win him over? Can the Bubble people change?

Songs: 
“Welcome Mythmakers”
“The Myth of Erysicthon Part 1”
“Metra’s Mother”
“The Myth of Erysicthon Part 2”

Check out our website for ways to join the climate movement: metrathemusical.com/do-something

Support Metra at ko-fi.com/metrathemusical

Written by Emily and Ned Hartford
Music and Lyrics by Ned Hartford
Dialogue Directed by Emily Hartford
Produced by MythMakers Media

Featuring: Jeannette Bayardelle, Cherrye J. Davis, Corinna Schulenburg, Fred Inkley, Alia Munsch, Cristina Obando Sanchez, Sierra Rein, Ned Hartford, Corey Allen, and Stephanie Willing

Sound Editing and Design; Instrumentation Arranged and Performed; Vocals Arranged; and all Audio Produced, Engineered, and Mixed by Ned Hartford

Follow the show:
https://pod.link/1843713183
IG and Bluesky:  @metrathemusical
metrathemusical.com

To launch their mission against the Bubbles, the team needs someone on the inside. Someone with access to the Bubble security systems. Luckily their new friend, Diane, has gear that their mark is desperate to get his hands on.

Things are about to get very real. Is our team ready?

Written by Emily and Ned Hartford
Music and Lyrics by Ned Hartford
Dialogue Directed by Emily Hartford
Produced by MythMakers Media

Featuring: Jeannette Bayardelle, Cherrye J. Davis, Corinna Schulenburg, Fred Inkley, Alia Munsch, Cristina Obando Sanchez, Sierra Rein, Galway McCullough, Ned Hartford, Kristen Vaughan, and Luke Wyngarden

Sound Editing and Design; Instrumentation Arranged and Performed; Vocals Arranged; and all Audio Produced, Engineered, and Mixed by Ned Hartford

Follow the show:
https://pod.link/1843713183
IG and Bluesky:  @metrathemusical
metrathemusical.com

Support Metra at ko-fi.com/metrathemusical

The revolutionaries learn that their Process has triggered some devastating fallout.

Sam proposes a new direction, and Aggie bristles at a judgmental counterpart. Cori attempts a dangerous quest for some of the mission’s missing pieces.

The team gain new allies.

Songs:
“A Nymphian Interlude”

Written by Emily and Ned Hartford
Music and Lyrics by Ned Hartford
Dialogue Directed by Emily Hartford
Produced by MythMakers Media

Featuring: Jeannette Bayardelle, Cherrye J. Davis, Corinna Schulenburg, Fred Inkley, Alia Munsch, Cristina Obando Sanchez, Sierra Rein, Stephanie Bacastow, Stephanie Willing, Kristen Vaughan, Walker Schneckenberger, and Luke Wyngarden

Sound Editing and Design; Instrumentation Arranged and Performed; Vocals Arranged; and all Audio Produced, Engineered, and Mixed by Ned Hartford

Content Note: Implied violence and discussion of violent event.

Follow the show:
https://pod.link/1843713183
IG and Bluesky:  @metrathemusical
metrathemusical.com

Support Metra at ko-fi.com/metrathemusical