He was flabbergasted, he didn't know what to make of it.

- Nonprofit organization Team Hype is putting on its 19th annual theater production on March 14th.

The play is titled "Two Detroits", and it tells the story of two teenagers from different walks of life and how do they navigate the realities of living in our city.

Here to tell us more about the play and the organization is Ambra Redrick.

She is the CEO of Teen Hype and she is joined by cast member Omega Clemons, who is a student at the Detroit School of the Arts, where we film "American Black Journal".

Welcome both of you to "American Black Journal".

- Thank you.

- Yeah so one of the things I love about Teen Hype and the whole idea, is I feel like what you're doing is helping young people find their voice.

And not only find their voice, but also find where and how they can use it.

- Absolutely.

- And it's such an important thing to do when you're a young person.

- It is, it is, I'm sure you can remember those years during your teen years.

- Sometimes fondly, sometimes not so fondly but I remember.

- The importance of having space to do that.

That when you have those moments of self discovery and you are trying to find out who you are is such a beautiful moment as you kind of stumble upon that.

It's one of the beautiful things about teenagers.

- How did you come up with the idea for Teen Hype?

- Oh I wish I could say I took credit for an idea, co-founder, but it was a very like divine order thing.

We started our work many years ago in a hospital actually under public health.

And we quickly discovered how important youth voices and those young people actually came together, created a council, a young person said, "I've got an idea for a name, how about Teen Hype?"

And things just kind of took off from there.

We did a lot of work in the community early on with young people.

And one day we got a call for a larger audience and realized we couldn't do a normal, like, didactic presentation.

And we had to come up with this idea of trying to do theater.

- Theater, right?

- And that is where theater was born.

- Yeah and the number of young people who've gone through this program is phenomenal at this point.

- Yeah we are going into year 21, so we are approaching adulthood also.

- That's right.

- And it feels like, I can't believe that we've served well over 30,000 kids.

- It's incredible that number is just mind blowing.

- Yeah it is and still feels very small enough to see young people come to through the door and still recognized them by name, and see young people that have gotten married and are doing wonderful things.

- Yeah, yeah and Omega, you are a member of of Teen Hype and you're playing a role in this new production.

Tell us about how you got involved with Teen Hype and then tell us about what you're doing in this play.

- Well, how I got involved was, first I didn't know anything about Teen Hype but at the time I was homeschooled and I was really looking for somewhere to, you know, express myself and be myself, and discover who I was.

My father, actually, he recommended Teen Hype to me.

And I became interested and I was just drawn to the opportunities that they were giving out.

Like I saw the singing, the chances of poetry, the chances of dancing and acting and that really spoke to me.

And I ended up signing up and we went to the interview, 'cause the interview process before you are admitted, like actually in Teen Hype.

And I passed the interview and I was just greeted with so many like, friendly people.

And I just felt like I already had a community without actually like getting to... You know, without having the bonds yet.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- There was already something there - [Stephen] That's really powerful.

- And I would say that's how I got involved in it.

Was just that.

- Yeah.

- My father was like, "You should do it."

I'm like, "I should."

- "I'll try that out, right?"

So talk about this new play and the role that you're playing in it.

- So with the role of the play, I have a role when it comes, not really acting wise, but a role as in helping with the message of the play.

I'm a YAC member is a Youth Advisory Council.

- [Stephen] Okay.

- And we get together and we discuss ways to help out with community, spread the message because we have the play, you know, that's for awareness, but we discuss like how to actually put that into the community and how to actually make it a lot bigger than us.

So that is mainly my role when it comes to this play, is to put that message out there.

Is to really help people change their perspectives or give them a new perspective and give them a new idea of what's really going on.

And just being able to use my role to make a change in the world.

And to make a difference when it comes to teens and when it comes to even the adults, 'cause everyone has a voice and everyone has, you know, everyone learns new things so.

- Ambra, let's tell viewers about this, more about this play.

"Two Detroits", it's a phrase we use a lot in this city these days and it is how a lot of folks feel about the city and the things that are happening and so much change.

So many things are changing but talk about this play and the story it tells.

- So this play explores the story of two young people who are siblings and how they are navigating two very different paths being raised by different parents.

And it is a tale that we all know, that young people that are under-resourced live one path, and sometimes young people who have better resources and opportunities have a different path.

And that when you have less resources, there are different struggles and how hard it is to navigate life, particularly here in Detroit.

- Yeah.

- And I think our young people have done a phenomenal job of uplifting some of those challenges.

- Yeah.

You allow the young people to kind of set the direction they do for all this.

- They do.

- I mean, as Omega was saying, she's part of this use advisory council.

They figure out how to stage this and put the message out there.

- They do, they look at a variety of topics, they take their job very seriously.

And I pushed back and they pushed back against me and we went round and round a few times around gentrification and I was like, "Why is that important?"

And they gave a lot of rationale and talked about like why we needed to talk about this now to make sure that they just wasn't picking, you know, some term that they heard.

They are passionate about the things that they believe in.

Rightfully so and so as you can imagine, once we kind of move over and allow young people to have a voice they take off.

- Yeah, yeah and the play was written by a Teen Hype Alum, is that right?

- It is, Mallory Childs, Mariah Burton has put in some work into this play and so I'm excited to see what they're gonna bring to the stage.

- Yeah, yeah so Omega, I wonder what in this play speaks to you, this idea of two Detroit's, two siblings growing up in different households.

Why does that resonate with you?

- It resonates with me because, you know, growing up I had different siblings in different households and I grew up like that.

Also, the effects of, you know, living in a world where, you know around us, the world is getting more and more expensive and everything is, you know, changing.

But yet it is hard for us to adapt because we're so accommodated this lifestyle.

But then there's another lifestyle that's building around us and it's hard to adapt to that.

And you know, living different lifestyles with two different you know, parents and different households 'cause I grew up with that.

You know, I grew up with older brothers who were in different places and I was here in Detroit and they were in other places.

And just the fact that just living in a different culture where you know, being in a world like Detroit, Detroit is always developing.

It's always, there's new things happening every single day.

But at the same time, it's hard to adapt to that when we're not at the same speed.

- Yeah.

- So I say it resonates with me in that way when it comes to, you know, the rapid changes of the economy and the rapid changes of- - You feel that.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

Well, it's really great to have you here and to have you talk about this amazing work over such a long period of time.

Ambra and Omega, thanks for being here with us on "American Black Journal".

- Thank you.

- Thank you so much.