This weekend, Joe’s Movement Emporium held sold-out performances of a play set in North Brentwood in the 1940s.

“Welcome to Sis’s” is centered on a Friday night at Sis’s Tavern, which was a hotspot for live music frequented by the likes of Duke Ellington and Pearl Bailey in North Brentwood that is being restored.

The play was written by Doug Robinson, who is also working on the “Mapping Racism” project for the Hyattsville Community Development Corporation. It was produced by Ally Theatre Company, which was also behind “#poolparty,” about the desegregation of a neighborhood pool.

“Welcome to Sis’s shines a light on one community’s ability to survive and thrive amidst the turbulent backdrop of racist housing codes and local dividing lines that played out across the country’s neighborhoods and still affects us today,” reads the play’s summary.

Joe’s held a live reading of the play at the Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center in 2019 followed by a Q&A with the play’s collaborators. These performances were at Joe’s Movement Emporium at 3309 Bunker Hill Rd. in Mount Rainier.