About the Show

A sharp comedy where three couples clash over love, marriage, and the true art of letting go.

Art of Leaving, a new comedy by Anne Marilyn Lucas, offers a fast-paced, laugh-out-loud exploration of modern love and the evolving meaning of marriage. Inspired by Lucas’s own experiences and described as A Doll’s House meets Neil Simon, the play follows three couples — in their 20s, 50s, and 70s — who find themselves at a family crossroads. Each generation brings a wildly different vision of what marriage should look like, from lifelong commitment to open partnerships, sparking a hilarious tangle of misunderstandings and revelations. At the center is Diana, a lifelong people-pleaser, and her husband Aaron, an ardent follower of a self-help guru whose bestselling book Male Satisfaction Over 40 urges men to reclaim their so-called masculinity. As love, freedom, and identity are put to the test, Art of Leaving delivers a sharp, funny, and deeply human look at what we risk by holding on — and what we discover by letting go.

Critic Reviews (7)

"The play lampoons Aaron’s gender essentialism... but overstaying its welcome... The emphasis on one misogynistic book... keeps the play from being more than a surface-level look."
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"Watching a woman’s self-esteem get battered for 90 minutes, while being asked to find her travails amusing, is an experience that many may find masochistic."
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"The performance garnered a fair number of laughs the night I attended, but these were mostly a tribute to the very hard-working cast."
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While Broadway was once filled with plays like this, "Art of Leaving" now seems very dated
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The play is ultimately sunk by a perfect storm of deficiencies—a cliché-ridden script, one-dimensional characters, and a flaccid production that fails to provide even a hint of authenticity.
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There are throwbacks and then there’s ‘The Art of Leaving,’ a new one-act comedy that could pass for a middling revival of a Neil Simon knockoff from a half century ago. The characters in Anne Marilyn Lucas’ script seem to be stuck in a time warp untouched by feminism, self-awareness, or just about any sign of modernity.
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Rarely does a play get off to such a torturous start for its audience like Art of Leaving.
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