BROKE-OLOGY at the Anacostia Playhouse. Courtesy of C. Stanley Photo.

The Anacostia Playhouse has been heralded as a needed and necessary new addition east of the river, and its inaugural production, Broke-Ology, has gotten stellar reviews. But just weeks after opening, the theater is in danger of closing over a holdup with the Internal Revenue Service.

Chief executive officer Adele Robey and her daughter Julia Robey Christian, who serves as Chief Operating Officer, say they applied for tax exemption as a nonprofit, or 501(c)3, organization last August. After being told the process would take 60 to 90 days, the women are still waiting a year later. Their application has yet to be assigned to an IRS representative.

Without the exemption, the Anacostia Playhouse is unable to apply for grants. Without grants, there’s no Anacostia Playhouse.

With no where else to turn, Julia Robey Christian, a well-known Capitol Hill resident, took to Twitter this week to raise awareness about the issue. “We’ve been through two processes trying to get this thing expedited,” she said during a phone call today. “Maybe Twitter will do something.”

“The point is obviously we’re not the only one,” Adele Robey added. “There must be thousands like us in the same situation.”

Adele Robey and Julia Robey Christian have gone through traditional channels, speaking to IRS representatives who told them the delay was caused by a backlog of applications and the sequester. They applied for help through Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s office, but that has yet to be successful.

Julia Robey Christian said they were sent a form from Norton’s office that the office would in turn send to the IRS. When they asked about the status of their completed form, they were sent a blank form again. Adele Robey said she’s had a hard time getting in touch with the person she was told to contact. The last thing they heard from Norton’s office was “We’re working on it.”

An email sent to Del. Norton’s office this morning has yet to be returned.

This process is new to Adele Robey, who with her late husband owned the H Street Playhouse, which is credited with helping to revive the Northeast D.C. Corridor. Since Robey and her husband owned the building, they did not have to face the nonprofit issues they are dealing with now.

While “wonderful” people have sent in contributions to the Anacostia Playhouse, they have to go through the theater’s fiscal agent Fractured Atlas, which takes six percent off the top. Adele Robey said agencies who supply the grants they desperately need won’t work with companies like Fractured Atlas.

“There must be someone in this universe who can say to the IRS nonprofit division, ‘Shape up! Put [aside] those other [applicants] who didn’t do their due diligence and send in [tax form] 990s for three years. … Stop farting around with Tea Party people and help some legitimate people.”

Indeed, after news of the IRS’s strict review of Tea Party groups broke, Adele Robey wrote a letter to the Washington Post about the broader problems with the agency.

I don’t know when this ordeal will be over, but here’s something I do know: I cannot tell the IRS that I am “behind” and can’t get around to my taxes. I can’t tell my clients that I can’t finish their projects because of the “sequester.” I have to return phone calls or I will have no clients, and we will have no renters at our new venue.

The letter was published in May, and still no help has come for the Anacostia Playhouse.

So what’s taking so long? A spokesperson from the IRS said this morning they would attempt to get DCist information about the long wait time, but hasn’t yet. This writer reports being a tad frustrated with the slow response. That’s been the women’s experience, too.

“We wrote a letter to the president,” Julia Robey Christian said with a laugh when asked about their level of frustration. “That should give you a sense of an idea of our frustration.”

Here’s a section from the letter to President Obama, dated August 8, which details the Playhouse’s woes:

Being fully aware of the unfathomable number of things you have on your plate, I thought long and hard before writing this letter. But I now feel that I have no choice, as there is no other recourse I see for this issue—one that is having a severe impact on me, my family and many, many others who are in the same situation.

It is not an issue that generates a lot of press, or even interest among officials or the public at large, but one that has a genuine negative effect on thousands of people. The problem is the backlog at the IRS of applications for tax exemption as 501(c)3 organizations. Here is what that means to our organization—and I can assure you it is happening across the country.

Without the exemption status, Adele Robey said the Anacostia Playhouse likely won’t make it through the end of the year. Julia Robey Christian said without the funds from productions and other programs like educational classes, they aren’t able to offer much-needed lowered rent to theater companies.

“We’ve laid out these plans to do these things, which is part of the outreach of the building and the whole project itself,” Julia Robey Christian said. “But we can’t get there because we can’t fund it ourselves. Both of us are right now living on savings.” They’re also unable to hire more Playhouse staff to “create jobs east of the river.”

“We need to apply for funding,” Robey said. “It’s just that simple.”

Update: In a statement on the Playhouse’s website, Robey and Robey Christian said they are “committed to keeping our doors open and the stage lights on for the long haul.”