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.

Bill Cleveland

Host of Change the Story / Change the World and founder of the Center for the Study of Art & Community.

Emily Hartford

Theater director, writer, and producer; founding member of Flux Theater Ensemble and co-creator of Metra.

Ned Hartford

Composer, songwriter, audio engineer, and co-creator of Metra, focused on musical storytelling and audio drama.

Alan Lomax

Folklorist and field-recording pioneer whose work capturing the emotional power of the human voice is referenced in the episode.

Enoch Rutherford

Old-time banjo player recorded by Alan Lomax in Virginia; referenced through a story of lineage, listening, and musical transmission.

Bill McKibben

Climate activist and author referenced for framing distributed solar power as a metaphor for bottom-up social change.

adrienne maree brown

Writer and activist whose work on emergence and collective power informs Metra’s worldview.

Martin Buber

Philosopher referenced for his concept of relational connection (I–Thou), via the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Flux Theater Ensemble

New York–based theater company where Metra was...

Making art, Building communities, Driving change.

30 years in operation,

62 communities engaged,

47 awards won,

550 artists contributed,

9, 500 people participated,

2. 6 million audience members.

Can a skateboard ramp in the rainforest spark a global movement for justice, creativity, and environmental protection?

In Part Two of our BIGhART Series, we ride along with Scott Rankin and the BIGhART team as they blend skate culture, Indigenous wisdom, and creative process into a powerful force for social change.

Listen to Part One Here

Whether it’s fighting for the endangered Tarkine rainforest or giving marginalized youth a platform to be seen and heard, BIGhART shows how art, patience, and deep listening can radically transform the world around us. If you’re wondering what change-making really looks like, this story will challenge and inspire you.

1. Explore how skateboarding becomes both an art form and a mental health lifeline for young people at the edge of society.
2. Hear how BIGhART’s long game—projects that unfold over decades—challenges quick-fix activism by centering deep community invitation and legacy-building.
3. Learn why creativity rooted in respect, reciprocity, and humility is essential to confronting cultural wounds, environmental destruction, and systems of injustice.

Scott Rankin co-founded Big hART with friend John Bakes in 1992. As CEO and Creative Director, Scott leads the overarching vision for all Big hART projects – from pilot through to legacy. A leader and teacher in the field of social and cultural innovation, Scott provides daily mentorship and knowledge transfer to all Big hART staff so that they can in turn lead our projects with confidence.

An award winning writer and director in his own right, Scott’s works have been included many times in major arts festivals. His reputation is built on a quarter of a century of work, creating, funding and directing large-scale projects in diverse communities with high needs, in isolated settings.

Big hART is Scott’s passionate contribution to the arts and society.

BIGhART:

Ngapartji Ngapartji: Big hART designed the Ngapartji Ngapartji project to raise awareness of Indigenous language loss, and the lack of an national Indigenous languages policy.

Tasmania is an island state of Australia.[15] It is located 240 kilometres (150 miles) to the south of the

This isn’t a regular ART IS CHANGE episode. It’s a pause. A moment to mark the passing of Leni Sloan—artist, activist, catalytic troublemaker, and beloved friend.

In this special reflection, Bill Cleveland shares stories that trace Leni’s life across stages and communities—from a daring Bicentennial musical about minstrelsy, to decades of cultural work uncovering erased Black histories, to his role as a catalytic force inside institutions that needed shaking awake. This is a portrait not just of what Leni made, but how he moved through the world.

You’ll hear about a man who believed history lives in bodies, that culture breathes through people, and that the real work is connection—between past and present, pain and joy, the visible and the forgotten. It’s a meditation on art as lineage, memory, and moral practice, told with humor, tenderness, and deep respect.

Listen in as we honor Leni Sloan’s life, legacy, and enduring presence—and let his stories remind us why telling the whole truth, especially the hard parts, is how we stay human.

Multiple early and foundational episodes of this podcast include extended conversations with Leni on art, history, humility, and social change.

1. L. O. Sloan - Adventures of a Gunrunner for the Arts Part 1
2. L. o. Sloan - Adventures of a Gunrunner for the Arts Part 2
3. Building Blocks of Effective Art and Social Change Practice: W/ Leni Sloan, Barbara Shaffer Bacon, and Bill Cleveland

Bill Cleveland: Founder of the Center for the Study of Art & Community and host of Change the Story / Change the World. Longtime collaborator and close friend of Leni Sloan, offering this remembrance.

Leni Sloan (Lenwood O. Sloan): Playwright, director, cultural strategist, and community arts leader whose work bridged history, performance, policy, and community storytelling for more than four decades.

Laurie Meadof: Friend and colleague and internationally recognized artist organizer who shared the news of Leni Sloan’s passing with Bill Cleveland.

Barbara Schaffer Bacon: National leader in arts-based civic practice and longtime collaborator with Leni Sloan, referenced in connection with recent podcast conversations.

Bert Williams: Groundbreaking African American performer whose life and legacy anchor Sloan’s musical play The Wake.