Interview: Audrey Heffernan Meyer on the New Off-Broadway Comedy Art of Leaving

At the center of it is Diana, a “lifelong people pleaser” played by Audrey Heffernan Meyer, who describes the play as a cross between a Neil Simon comedy and Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Here, Meyer—herself the wife of restauranteur Danny Meyer—tells us about the production and how it’s destined to make people “squirm in their seat.”

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

When did you decide to become an actor, and who were your teachers/influences?

Playing Betsy Ross in grade school was the beginning but I really got the bug in ninth grade when I played Maria in West Side Story. I went to high school with Richard Kind, who was in that same production, doubling as Doc and Glad Hand!

My high school mentor was our choir director, Frank Locane, who urged me to audition for Maria. In college, my acting teacher was Bill Kelly at Penn State, who directed me in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. I played a challenging role, Ruth, who has a Grand Mal seizure on stage. Austin Pendleton is my teacher at HB, and I go to Chris York for singing and F. Murray Abraham for career advice and coaching.

You also do opera, right?
Yes, I studied opera in my 20s with Felix Knight, a Met tenor who was the original Tom in the movie Babes in Toyland. He helped me develop the Bel Canto style — I’m a lyric soprano — by teaching me gorgeous Italian arias and pronunciation, which further enriched my naturally high soprano, and helped me tackle all the legit musical roles I was auditioning for.

Later in my career, I performed in five operas with the Bronx Opera Company. I also recently wrote and performed my one-woman show, Nick of Time, at Joe’s Pub, featuring songs by my favorite vocalist of the 1970s, Joni Mitchell. Thankfully my soprano is still intact.

Your work runs the gamut between screen and stage. Do you have a preference?  

I started my career on stage, playing leading ladies in all the classic musicals in summer stock, Carousel, Sound of Music, Music Man. Then in college, I did plays by Shaw, Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller.

When I got to New York City right out of college with my BA in Theater in hand, my agent was getting me auditions for commercials and soap operas. I booked quite a few of them. Playskool Toys, Minute Maid, beer ads; One Life to Live, Edge of Night, The Doctors, Search for Tomorrow. I’m dating myself, but I realized there was a whole world of TV and film right here in New York City that could actually employ my acting training. Now, my list of co-star and recurring roles on TV and episodics is long, The Blacklist, Billions, Mrs. Maisel, Blue Bloods.

While I find TV work a bit easier, I do prefer going deep into exploring a character’s emotions, the way one can on stage, and having a long run as we do in Art of Leaving where you can continue to explore motivations and relationships with other characters.

What can you tell us about Art of Leaving?

Our company of six has been together since last February, when Anne Marilyn Lucas’s comedy debuted in the East Village at Theater for the New City. We also had two readings to benefit breast cancer research in the Hamptons last year, where we held talkbacks for audiences to discuss the issues in the play and give us feedback before bringing it off-Broadway. Anne has worked with a dramaturg this past year to implement much of that feedback.

Art of Leaving is a wonderful acting piece for all six characters. It’s multi-generational, three couples in one family, trying to make sense of their relationships with their partners, and the best way to keep them intact. It asks the question of who will stay, and who will leave when a relationship goes sour. It examines polyamory versus traditional marriages, gender expectations, the manosphere versus female empowerment…think Neil Simon meets A Doll’s House.

Why should people come see it?

Because it’s a laugh-out-loud, squirm in your seat kind of piece that skillfully examines the serious subject of divorce, the current obsessions with self-help gurus, and has an unexpected twist at its conclusion. It’s highly intelligent writing with razor-sharp zingers.

It’s part family comedy, part kitchen sink drama, the style of play that audiences crave. We’re witnessing the comeback of this kind of work in New York theaters, off-Broadway and on.