Empire Student Advocates for Actor Mental Health 

When Katherine Kemmet first enrolled at Empire State University in 2025, she saw completing her bachelor’s degree as a steppingstone to earning her MFA in acting. Now, after taking Professor Cindy Conaway’s Television and Culture course, her goals have shifted. 

“Since taking the course, I have developed a fascination with how media influences culture,” says the Brooklyn resident, who’s pursuing a liberal arts degree with a focus in media and theater studies. “My goals are more in line now with becoming an artist-scholar and contributing to the discourse around media, culture, and performing arts more broadly.” 

Recently, Kemmet has had an opportunity to do just that. Drawing from her years of professional acting experience, which she’s balanced alongside school and a full-time job, Kemmet penned an essay on the stigma of actor burnout. The article was published online by HowlRound Theatre Commons in July. 

In it, Kemmet recounts her own experience with burnout—and the less-than-supportive response she got from the acting teacher she confided in about it. Instead of compassion, the performer—who holds an A.A. from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts—was met with judgment. “I’ve never met someone who really wanted to be an actor who’s experienced burnout,” the teacher told her. 

For Kemmet, the instructor’s dismissive reaction points to prevailing issues in theater education. 

“I think there is a tendency in the arts to romanticize struggle and treat exhaustion as proof of dedication to the craft. The implication seems to be that if you truly love your craft, you should be willing to sacrifice anything, including your own mental health, to pursue it. In my view, this is a dated and harmful attitude,” she says. 

“I’ve been heavily involved in theater spaces and continued acting education for the past decade, and the experience I have had reflects what I have seen more broadly among working-class artists. The stigma against artists experiencing burnout strikes me as the antithesis of what art is,” Kemmet continues. “At its core, the craft of acting is rooted in empathy and yet studios can sometimes have a profound lack of empathy for their students based on a perception of work ethic that doesn’t always reflect the reality or account for the heavy workload of maintaining a life.” 

Others seem to agree. Since its release, Kemmet’s essay has received thousands of views on the HowlRound Theatre Commons website and hundreds of likes on Instagram. Although initially nervous about the feedback she might receive, Kemmet says the article’s positive reception from arts educators and actors has proved reassuring. 

Going forward, Kemmet intends to write more articles—this time on diminished access and career mobility for working-class artists. She also plans to continue acting and credits her classes at SUNY Empire with helping to shape her work.  

“My studies have deepened the level of script analysis in my acting work. I’ve developed a stronger understanding of authorial intent,” she says. “I’ve found this has helped me understand where I, as an actor, fit into the overall story being told.”