You Had Me at Ballet: Audrey Robbins and Harry Leopold Partner for the Arts

By Sylvia Whitman | Photo by Nancy Guth | December 2021

Never underestimate the magnetic attraction of the arts. It drew Audrey Robbins and Harry Leopold separately to Sarasota. Years later, it helped bring them together as a couple—that and their competitive streak on the tennis court. And now it’s a bond in their six-year marriage as they attend performances and support arts organizations like The Sarasota Ballet.

Robbins, who serves on the ballet’s board of trustees, drives this particular commitment. She came to her dance appreciation late. As a girl growing up in Denver, Colorado, she didn’t twirl around in a tutu. “I was a little more of a tomboy,” she says. A “great PE teacher” put her on the field in elementary school, and she competed in team sports through college and beyond, part of the pioneering generation of female athletes bolstered by the passage of Title IX in 1972.

Fast forward to 1999, as Robbins weighed a move to Florida. Miami? Naples? A single mother with two young children, she accepted an offer to chair the math department at Sarasota’s Out-of-Door Academy —largely because of the school’s wonderful K-12 program, she says, but also because of the broad local arts scene. Not that she had much time to enjoy it, between the kids and the job and the extra job she took on to keep her daughter on the competitive tennis circuit. Now and then, Robbins went to the ballet. The athleticism appealed to her, along with the music.

In those busy years, Robbins read an article that talked about Iain Webb and The Sarasota Ballet’s astounding development as a regional company. “I was immediately attracted and started going, but again only once or twice a season.”

She and Leopold lived 10 minutes and maybe one degree of separation apart. But it was only after Robbins retired from teaching that the two, both divorced, met online. “We’ve combined lives very nicely,” she says. Even the kids get along. They acknowledge their luck and the quality of their lives, which they attribute in part to the quality of the arts in town.

“I always say when I married Harry, I got season tickets and better seats,” Robbins says with a laugh.

“We don’t take it for granted for a moment,” Leopold says.

As a boy, Leopold didn’t twirl around in tights either. His family moved to the States from Holland in 1951. No teams for him, though. “When it came to sports, I was always chosen last,” he says.

Robbins isn’t going to let him get away with all that self-deprecation. “He is a great tennis player.”

“I’m a tennis hacker,” he insists. “But I enjoy it. It’s a great workout.”

Leopold also moved to Sarasota in 1999. An investment banker, he had retired at 55, dividing the year between Philadelphia and the Palm Beach area. As his two kids reached school age, he and his then-wife needed to choose one hometown, and Sarasota won. “Again, for the arts,” Leopold said. “For Sarasota Opera actually.”

All arts, he says, improve a community’s quality of life. Years back, a Philadelphia paper published an op-ed Leopold wrote about the importance of cultural organizations in attracting wealthy patrons, who in turn donate to other nonprofit groups, including social service agencies. He sees that in Sarasota, too, as people with means give widely through the Community Foundation of Sarasota and other philanthropies.

So, how did The Sarasota Ballet win a special place in his heart?

“Well, that’s easy,” he says. “Miss Audrey had tickets, and I followed her over. I was not a huge enjoyer of ballet, but I’ve gotten to love it.”

“That’s not entirely true,” she says. “You had tickets.”

“Did I have tickets?”

“Yes. And you knew Iain [Webb, director of The Sarasota Ballet].”

Leopold laughs and clarifies, “Only recently have I gotten to really love the experience of watching it. You have dance and music at the same time. And the gracefulness of the dancers, the quality of the dancers, is just wonderful. I’m secretly—don’t tell Audrey—I’m secretly in love with a few of the dancers.”

He and Robbins spar playfully. “I’m sure they’re interested in me as well,” Leopold says. “They’re in their early 20s, and I’m 78.”

Applause for the Off-Stage Performances

Svelte ballerinas aside, Robbins and Leopold also laud The Sarasota Ballet’s many extracurricular activities, such as Dance—The Next Generation (DNG). This program enrolls “at risk” third graders and involves them dance and enrichment activities through the end of high school. Robbins remember the importance of arts in her own education—and in her working life as an educator. Leopold’s daughter now teaches in local schools.

Arts give students “a moment to breathe,” says Robbins. “Not everybody is great all day in what they do and in school particularly.” Most DNG kids won’t become dancers, but the afternoon program “gives them the structure and the camaraderie and the fellowship that they may not have in their everyday lives.”

The Sarasota Ballet reaches into the community with smaller initiatives as well. In the depths of the pandemic one of the dancers started teaching Pilates on Zoom—to dancers, patrons, friends, and eventually anyone with access to the Web. “The arts here are so inclusive in so many ways,” says Robbins. “It’s just not snobby.”

There’s a family feel to The Sarasota Ballet, she adds. “We know the dancers; they know us. We know the staff. As a board member, I’m really honored to be so closely tied in to what goes on there.”

Dancers live in Sarasota. They take classes, working toward college degrees. They volunteer. Leopold was thrilled to spot a mention in a Herald-Tribune op-ed about a member of The Sarasota Ballet tutoring a previously homeless young man at Second Heart Homes as he studied to earn his GED.

 Leopold leaves the artistic ambitions to Webb and company. “I can’t imagine them being better than they are.” He’d like to have an impact on people who have never been to the ballet. He and Robbins sprinkle invitations among their friends and aim to extend those to local kids now that the pandemic seems to be loosening its grip. They’ve been involved with a national nonprofit, Tickets for Kids, and would like to see a similar program here that offers seats (and logistical support in getting to the theater) to kids who might otherwise never have the opportunity to see a play or a concert or a ballet.

Leopold and Robbins also see room for The Sarasota Ballet to grow its adult audience. “There are people who come down here, and they’re blown away by how good the ballet is,” says Robbins. “They’ve been in New York and seen other regional ballets. We’re biased, but I hear from others that they’re really impressed.”

Yet so many generous arts lovers in town just haven’t given dance a chance.

“Before I started to go, I convinced myself that I wouldn’t like it,” Leopold says. “Once you’ve been a few times, you end up loving it, but a lot of people haven’t taken that first step.”