ABSTRACT
For over 25 years, the Freddie Hendricks Youth Ensemble of Atlanta (YEA), a free professional acting company primarily consisting of African American/Black teens, has devised socially relevant and politically charged musicals with youth employing the Hendricks Method. The artistic feats of YEA members and alumni are extraordinary and progressive, considering that they work in a field in which roles for Blacks are limited and often detrimentally stereotypical. The Hendricks Method, developed while working with Black youth, is an amalgamation of empowered authorship, musical bravado, spirituality, ensemble building, activism, effusive reverence of Black culture, and devising, often sans script. In 1990 the Freddie Hendricks YEA was officially incorporated by Hendricks and his close friends, one of whom was Debi Barber.
