Before it shut down last year, DC’s Anacostia Playhouse was an important community venue for a neighborhood that doesn’t have much access to theater. Recently, its founder, Adele Robey , has been raising funds to relaunch the theater at its former location in the Anacostia Historic District—but Robey’s successor as executive director says he still runs the organization. The result is a confusing tug of war between two factions that both think they’re the real Anacostia Playhouse.

Robey and her daughter launched the Playhouse in 2013, turning a warehouse on Shannon Place, Southeast, into a black-box theater. The Playhouse staged theatrical productions, readings, and jazz concerts. “It was just astonishing, creative work in a little space with no money,” Robey says.

But in 2022, she

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