Wild Swan Theater created Along the Tracks: Michigan and the Underground Railroad so that young people in Michigan would have a chance to see a play that was related to important aspects of Michigan's history that they study in school. The play was also created to be part of Detroit's celebration of its 300th birthday. Wild Swan Theater is a Partner Program of Detroit 300, which is the sponsoring committee of the celebration of Detroit's 300th birthday.

The first step in developing the production was to find a skilled playwright who could write the play. Jeffrey Chastang, who was born in Inkster and grew up in Detroit, came to Wild Swan's attention because of two plays he had written about the African American experience for Detroit's Plowshares Theatre. He has also won a major national prize for one of those plays, the Kennedy Center's Roger L. Stevens Award for New American Playwrights. Mr. Chastang worked with Wild Swan Theater for one year to create the script for Along the Tracks.

Wild Swan also had help from historians who have spent years studying and researching the Underground Railroad. Carol Mull and Joyce Meier are both scholars at the University of Michigan's Arts of Citizenship Program who attended readings of the play and gave very helpful advice about such things as how the Underground Railroad worked, what the lives of those involved were like, and how secrets were passed along the routes. Other people who read the script and gave advice about it were volunteers and staff of the African American Cultural and Historic Museum of Washtenaw County.

The play Mr. Chastang wrote is based on many things that happened in Michigan but it is not a true story. The children running away in the play were made up by him. George McCoy, however, the man who transported the children along the Underground Railroad route, is a real historical figure who lived in Ypsilanti at the time the play took place and who really did transport fugitive slaves in his wagon. Click here to hear Sandy Ryder of Wild Swan describe the play.

There were 27 performances in all, held at Washtenaw Community College, Wayne State University, and Monroe Community College.