The genesis
In the spring of 1990, Michelle Swanson, a drama teacher, and Duncan MacSwain, a biology teacher and noted expert in international rainforest issues, became interested in the debate over the logging of old growth forests in Humboldt County, California. It was a hot topic. Redwood Summer (a large scale anti-logging protest event) was scheduled for the coming months, and President George Bush had just announced his intention to revoke the Endangered Species Act.

In July of 1990, Ms. Swanson was awarded a Kennedy Center Fellowship and she went to Washington D.C. for a month to interview leaders in both the environmental movement (including Elliott Norse, a noted environmental author, and Barry Flamm of the Wilderness Society), government workers (such as Terry West from the US Forest Service), and timber lobbyists. In the fall of 1990, Swanson commissioned Roger Nieboer to write a play based on the information she had gathered. She asked Barney Jones and Bob Davis of earwax productions to design the sound for the play. Simultaneously, the Ensemble Theatre Company of Marin, an independent business run by Redwood High School, and earwax productions applied for, and received, a National Endowment for the Arts grant to produce "Radio High: A Teenagers Perspective on Contemporary Issues."

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