What’s the Point of Acting When the World Is Hurting?

My audition monologue for Juilliard back in 2018 was from Scorched by Wajdi Mouawad. A woman who has just witnessed an atrocious act of violence in a genocide asks her friend, as they find safety from the scene:

So what can we do? Shall we stick to our books and our alphabet where everything is so nice, so new, so extraordinary, so interesting? That's like spitting in the victim's faces. Words! What good are words if I don't know what I should do today? What can we do? What can we do?

I chose this monologue because it encapsulated some of my deepest wrestlings with choosing a life as a professional actor in the United States. I didn’t choose acting because I wanted applause or recognition. I chose acting because I wanted to understand what it means to be human.

As a young girl in Utah, I had actors in my life—especially my mentor Michael Littig, who would visit my home for the Shakespeare Festival—who wielded their artistry as acts of citizenship. They were doing more than performing. They were learning how to be better people through their practice. I wanted to do the same.

But even now, years later, I struggle with the same question that monologue asks. How, when we're surrounded by real human pain, do we justify spending time and money on make-believe? How do we connect our practice to the rest of our lives? How do we make sure our artistry—a word that I hope implies compassion, curiosity, and care—is making the world better? Especially in an industry that often requires so much from us before we even get a chance to work.

So what can Acting Coaching Online offer you in our classrooms and in our philosophy, when it comes to these questions?

Hope. And a place to practice courage.

Because each time we step outside of ourselves with genuine curiosity—which acting demands of us—we join the work of change. We interrupt our own biases. We challenge our own worldview. We don’t do this to agree with everyone or excuse harmful actions. We do it to understand what made someone who they are—and what makes us who we are.

This is the heart of the work we do at Acting Coaching Online. We offer personalized mentorship, flexible online scene study, and practical training in a wide range of skills—from Voice & Speech to Standup Comedy. Our coaching sessions fits your pace and schedule, making professional acting training accessible wherever you are. But we are also deeply dedicated to helping the artist within each client thrive—empowering you to walk into any audition or performance space with confidence, knowing your choice to act is a powerful and meaningful one.

We build tools that allow actors to connect more deeply with characters—and with people. That connection doesn’t stay onstage. It ripples outward into the real world. This doesn’t mean every actor needs to see themselves as an activist, or have all the political answers figured out. Activism and artistry can intersect—but they don’t have to be the same thing. What matters is the willingness to look closely, to feel deeply, and to let that attention shape how we move through the world. That kind of presence, curiosity, and care can ripple outward in ways we may never fully see—but they matter. My Juilliard teacher Richard Feldman always says -

Actors are the ones who let themselves be seen.

When I played Mayella Ewell, survivors of sexual assault approached me backstage— the work had created a bridge between their experience and my performance. And when I spoke a line about the Civil War in Sierra Leone in the Broadway show JOB, it was my training—and my commitment to honoring all of humanity, shaped by work in over 20 countries and creating documentary theatre with survivors of terrorism—that allowed me to deliver it with the truth it deserved.

Sara Haider in Memorial - a documentary theatre play by Arianna Gayle Stucki and Adam Elsayigh, created from interviews with survivors of the 2019 Mosque Shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand.

We live in a time when our screens show us the entire world—its pain, its joy, its contradictions. The job of the actor is to process that information with compassion and clarity, and then offer what we find to the audience.

We act. We do. Where others avoid or analyze from a distance, we step in with empathy. We study the nuances. We imagine the unimaginable. We believe that by paying attention, we bring truth to the surface.

And in a world where truth feels hard to come by, that kind of work matters.

So yes, Acting Coaching Online offers technique, coaching, scene work, monologue prep, and audition strategy. But at the core, we offer a belief: that becoming a better actor can help you become a better human being. And that your work might help others do the same.

The world needs hope. The world needs change. And actors carry hope in every story they tell—the hope that by looking closely, with compassion and specificity, we can create meaning. Meaning may not fill every void, but it can heal. It can remind us of what’s possible and pull us toward a better future. We feel our deepest humanity when we witness great art—and even more so when we create it. And we can do more than applaud. We can take what we felt and let it ripple outward, turning insight into action, shaping the world we want to live in. That is the most powerful kind of applause I can imagine.

That’s what we teach. That’s what we practice. That's why Acting Coaching Online exists —not just to shape better actors, but to help artists shape the world.