I suspected it might be time to abandon my Brooklyn studio for sunnier pastures (or parking lots) when I realized that the fortunes of my day turned on whether I was able to snag a seat on the train for my 45+ minute commute to Manhattan day jobs, auditions, and rehearsals. How bad could all this LA traffic business be, I thought – you get to sit down.

However, a week into the move it looked as though the freeways might make me into an idiot. Gone were my daily opportunities to ingest an hour-and-a-half of serious fiction, the Times Arts section, and (ok, ok) US Weekly. Sure, the radio’s got NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered, but those stories run a pretty short loop when you’re on the 10 at rush hour (and call me shallow, but I’m not that into hearing about the hunting of gray wolves in Idaho or the financial crisis of Mongolia’s grasslands more than once).

When I confessed my fear of impending brain atrophy to Sarah, one of three friends I charged with teaching me All Things LA, she told me, “Podcasts have changed my life.”

A few clicks through itunes and my ipod and I got to work, starting with the gold standard, Chicago Public Radio’s amazing/ground-breaking This American Life (“True stories of everyday people…but not always”). Soon I realized that listening to podcasts could be a convenient and cheap way to continue my acting education. And when that guy in the Sentra is flipping me off and I’m wondering if I can get back from Burbank with the gas light on, they also serve as positive reminders of why I’m in LA in the first place.

Here’s a run-down of two of my stand-bys and a new find.

The Treatment airs each Wednesday from 2:30-3pm on KCRW and is syndicated nationally. Hosted by journalist and film scholar Elvis Mitchell, each show is a half-hour interview with an A-list filmmaker, actor, or writer. Never went to film school? Never worked on a Darren Aronofsky set or been filmed by Ellen Kuras? This weekly shot of listening to the Big Dogs Run is the next best thing. I started crying on Fairfax hearing Jenny Lumet (screenwriter of Rachel Getting Married) discuss the details of Jonathan Demme’s take-no-prisoners style of directing actors and sat in the parking lot at Whole Foods for twenty minutes because I couldn’t unplug from Diablo Cody’s (Juno, United States of Tara) defensive mini-melt-down (in reaction to a compliment, no less – which only made me like her more).

According to its website, “Conversations on The Treatment are mostly comfortable, sometimes contentious, but always fascinating.” Yep. Mitchell’s tenures at the NY Times, LA Weekly, and Harvard give him access to the most accomplished and of-the-moment guests.  And it’s no wonder their eagerness to participate given the depth of Mitchell’s knowledge of each artist’s body of work, made all the more accessible by the show’s laid-back and urbane style.

Everything Acting Podcast is also known, in my head, as the Instant-Kick-in-the-Pants Podcast. Driving around to The Treatment, it’s easy to get lost in a fantasy of discussing the Dardenne Brothers’ films with Werner Herzog while we’re seated at the same table at Cannes…ok, I’m back now. But the Everything Acting Podcast is a candid and informative wake-up call that always reminds me of the resourcefulness and grit an actor’s life requires.

Producer/hosts Rosalyn Coleman and Darbi Worley invite us to join them as they “inform, inspire and demystify the actor’s journey.” And do these two know from journeys. Coleman is a Yale MFA grad with numerous film, TV and Broadway credits. When not acting, she writes and directs film under the shingle Red Wall Productions, a production company she founded with her husband Craig T. Williams. Coleman also maintains a thriving teaching practice including a recent stint coaching on HBO’s In Treatment. Did I also mention she has a three-year-old son!? Tired yet? Yeah, me too.

Darbi Worley, equally ambitious, claims she “disproves the myth that women can’t enter the business after 30.” Worley comes to acting by way of a successful career in sales and marketing. She also spent a chunk of time playing in rock bands in Austin, TX and has the uncensored motor mouth to prove it (“My vagina needs a breathalyzer” is just one memorable quote). Darbi regularly books on-camera commercials and voice overs, performs in a weekly news satire show, and is a member of New York’s The Bat Theater Company.

Broadcasting since late 2007, Coleman and Worley now produce an average of 2 shows a month. Each show features an interview with an industry guest and often includes a segment called “Actor Food” (bite-sized bits of inspiration such as inspiring dvds and books) and a candid running commentary on the hosts’ own professional triumphs and foibles. The guests are an eclectic lot – Oscar Nominee Viola Davis, indie film demi-gods The Duplass Brothers, and industrials CD Carol Nadell have all made recent appearances.

I recently listened to shows featuring voice over agent & consultant Johnna Gottlieb, director and BET Host Abiola Abrams, and author of How to Be a Working Actor author Mari Lyn Henry. I was struck by the discipline with which the hosts stick to their mission of illuminating the “actor’s journey.” Coleman and Worley leave no fork-in-the-road or transition unexplored, and they often point out connections in decision-making the guests seemed unaware of themselves. They’re also generous in revealing career mistakes and misconceptions of their own that dovetail their guests’ paths.

Given its detail and intelligence, Everything Acting Podcast could be a great resource to share with friends and loved ones who may be curious about (and a tad skeptical of) the day-to-day, nose-to-the-grindstone aspects of the actor’s life. The sheer volume of practical information bestowed can be a little overwhelming, but maybe that’s the point.There’s a lot to be done to make a life in acting, and the Everything Acting Podcast is not giving us any excuses. Be sure to poke around the EAP site; peruse the great list of resources and take advantage of the page that lists listener’s websites.

Actors Off Podcast is new to me, and, unfortunately, old news to creators Lynn Chen and Christy Meyers, who said farewell to the project in early 2008. The 12 episodes of their year + run remain in cyberspace, however, and are definitely worth a listen.

When I first saw the title I thought, Hmm, curious. “Actors Off?” Are actors “sounding off” on things? Rants on union politics, bad headshot lighting? It turns out that producer/hosts Chen and Meyers, two New York actors who relocated to LA to climb the film and TV ladders, had grown weary of explaining what they were doing (“watching tv and auditioning and getting rejected” in their words) when they “weren’t working.” So they put together this podcast to interview their peers to find out what “working actors do between paying gigs to stay active, sharp and sane.”

This explanation puzzled me further as I don’t ever think of ambitious actors as having “time off.” Looking for work is full-time job – actually doing a job often seems like the easy part, the icing on the cake.  And judging from the pauses of Emily Bergl (Broadway, television’s Men in Trees and Southland) and Kate Flannery (The Office) when the hosts pose them the central ‘time off’ question, at least two guests feel similarly.

But then things get interesting. While episodes of Actors Off disseminate fewer how-tos than Everything Acting Podcast (and the hosts’ laconic, casual interview style took a little getting used to), the conversations feel spontaneous and unpredictable. I can still hear the irreverence of Kate Flannery (‘If you want to move, you better be packed! If you’re praying for rain, bring an umbrella!’) and the resolve of Emily Bergl (‘People may be more talented than me, but no one’s gonna out-hustle me.’). I was also struck by how both of these guests framed the adversities they encountered early on (in Emily’s case, discouraging college professors; in Kate’s, writer friends becoming successful who didn’t ‘throw her a bone’) as experiences they are grateful for, that made them work that much harder to achieve their goals.

Actors Off episodes don’t have the super production values of The Treatment or the brick-by-brick instructions of Everything Acting Podcast, but between the ums and pauses and chatter about “creating space” and Korean Day Spas, Chen and Meyers have hidden a pot or two of gold. When reflecting on what she’s learned doing the podcasts, Meyers advises actors to “find the love in your life somewhere other than acting,” a thought about balance and what aspects of life the business is and isn’t able to accommodate that’s been flitting through my mind for days. Their freewheeling style and earnestness remind me to find more courage in putting my own personality and ambitions into the ring.

In the final episode, in which they pose their regular guest interview questions to each other, Chen and Meyers discuss the structure of their Actors Off’s journey:  how they set out to explore the down-time conundrum, a question important to their development, and, having gotten many answers, are now ready to devote their attention to other parts of their professional lives. These two jumped in, followed through, and moved on – and left us with something nourishing and fun in the process. The Actors Off Archive is a great testament to the communal benefits of the curiosity and hunger for connection that lead many of us into acting in the first place.

What are your favorite podcasts for your life in art? And drop us a line if/once you’ve started your own.

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