Photo by Aaron Webb.

After a few years in which seemingly every new cocktail bar that crops up has deemed itself a “speakeasy,” one D.C. institution is shedding the moniker.

The longstanding storytelling group SpeakeasyDC is changing its name to Story District as of next month. The change is meant to reflect a decade’s worth of growth and shepherd in a new, more inclusive era.

Growing out of events that had been taking place since the 1990s, SpeakeasyDC officially formed in 2005. Back then, their monthly storytelling events—where people would volunteer to get on stage and tell a tale—were small affairs, with crowds in the tens. Now, they are selling out the 9:30 Club and the Lincoln Theatre, with crowds over 1,000. The organization gets piles of pitches, and rehearses many of their shows. At the larger performances, the storytellers are paid.

But many people still assume they are just a small, monthly event.

“A speakeasy is a single bar, and that made sense when we had a single show at a single bar. That’s no longer the case,” says executive director Amy Saidman. The new name, Story District, “reflects who we are way more. Not only who we are—which is in almost every ward and doing classes and trainings with government agencies and organizations and companies—but it is also where we want to go.”

To that end, the non-profit, which is funded by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities as well as several private organizations, has expanded to Wards 7 and 8 through classes and a storytelling show.

“Part of what you’ll see change is [that] we have a lot of goals to reach more people and a wider range of demographics. We’re making more of an effort to do that and that will be seen on the stage, in the audiences, and [in] the classes,” Saidman says.

So did the name change have anything to do with not wanting to be associated with the $14 or $15 (or $135 for that matter) cocktail bar?

“We were around well before any of these,” Saidman says. “It didn’t influence why we wanted to change the name.”