The Hartfords
Ned and Emily Hartford are life and creative partners. Through their joint venture, MythMakers Media, they create audio, music, and theatre that aims to tap into our shared humanity, wonder, and actionable hope.
Emily Hartford
Emily is a theatre and media director, creator, intimacy director, artistic leader, producer, and educator. She is a proud Creative Partner with Flux Theatre Ensemble, and serves on the faculty of Playwrights Horizons Theatre School-NYU Tisch. Emily has directed and co-created numerous world premieres with Flux Theatre Ensemble, and is also proud to have directed productions with the Hangar Theatre, TheaterWorksUSA, Atlantic Acting School-NYU Tisch, Hofstra University, and more. Her short film, Type A, premiered at the Woods Hole Film Festival and appeared in festivals across the country. Drama League Directing Fellow, Member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, SDC Associate Member.
Ned Hartford
Ned is an award-winning songwriter and performer (including runner-up in Billboard Magazine’s Best Unsigned Band Competition, and winner of the International Songwriting Competition), and has played his music to audiences as large as 80,000 people. As a writer of musicals, Ned’s work has been produced at The Gym at Judson, Theater Row, and The Barrow Group. After Ned’s last record deal ended (with a rock label out of Nashville), Ned moved back to NYC with the goal of writing musicals. Over the course of the next 20 years, he worked diligently to gather the abilities needed to achieve that goal, including acceptance to the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop. Over the years, Ned has accrued a deep skillset as a songwriter, musician, actor, performer, writer of musicals, music producer, arranger, and recording engineer.
“Hope is an embrace of the unknown…Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. ”
The Origin Story: Metra is a radical adaptation of a myth from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In the original myth of “Erysicthon,” a King destroys a sacred grove, and then is cursed by the goddess Ceres with unquenchable hunger. He sells off his entire kingdom for food until there's nothing left to sell...except his daughter, Metra.
Ned and Emily Hartford created Metra first as a stage production, which received a premiere by Flux Theatre Ensemble at Abrons Arts Center in Manhattan. Called a “brash, impactful fantasia,” the show had a subsequent concert presentation at Judson starring Tony-nominee Jeannette Bayardelle.
The Hartfords would like to thank the following artists who have contributed to Metra’s development and creation: Toni Anderson, Arthur Aulisi, Jeannette Bayardelle, Nathanael Brown, Sabrina Carlier, Darilyn Castillo, Matt W. Cody, Heather Cohn, Suzanne Darrell, Cherrye J. Davis, David DelGrosso, Fiona Hansen, Rachael Hip-Flores, Fred Inkley, Will Lowry, Rocio Mendez, Antonio Miniño, Alia Munsch, Allison Cachay Narva, Lori Elizabeth Parquet, Rebecca Ana Peña, Jem Pickard, Anna Rahn, Raphael Regan, Sierra Rein, Dominique Rider, Kia Rogers, Cristina Obando Sanchez, Corinna Schulenburg, Ereni Sevasti, Maia Soltis, Alisha Spielmann, julian veronica, Richard B. Watson, Stephanie Cox-Williams, Stephanie Willing, Jodi Witherell, and Salma Zohdi.
“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”
“We are shaping the future we long for and have not yet experienced. I believe that we are in an imagination battle.”
“Climate change is a test of whether “the big brain” was a good adaptation or not. It can get us In a lot of trouble and now we’ll find out if it can get us out of that trouble. My guess is that the answer lies less in the size of the brain than in size of the heart it’s attached to. There are deep questions about human solidarity that we are going to answer, one way or the other, in the next few years.”