Making it After 40

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lisa chats with photographer and hypno-coach, Grace Chon. Grace shares how she started her career in advertising and soon found herself building a creative career out of a what started as a hobby to help shelter dogs find homes. Grace has gone on to publish two books with another on the way and has an active career of shooting pets for many commercial clients. Add...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Lisa chats with actor, improvisor and Executive Director of Youth Academy of Dramatic Arts, Carrie-Ann Pishnak. Carrie-Ann was mainstay in the Second City Hollywood office where she worked behind the scenes for many years in marketing, producing Premium shows and taking the lead on the Really Awesome Improv Show.  Since Second City Hollywood closed it's doors,...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Lisa chats with Kris Demeanor, a musician and sometimes actor based in Calgary. Kris shares how his father taught him to be explore creative via the medium of the visual arts, but then Kris translated that creative freedom to exploring an instrument. Starting a band with his buddies as a teenager, Kris and his bandmates explored their instruments and wrote their ow...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lisa chats with writer, improviser and podcaster, Carla Cackowski. Lisa and Carla met in 2017 when Carla was her improv teacher at Second City Hollywood. Carla shares her journey as an actor, starting out in Kentucky and finally landing in Los Angeles, which has now evolved to improvisation and writing. Carla shares her experience of living as an artist in Los Ang...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's episode, Lisa chats with actor and Self-Tape guru, Jeff Pride. Jeff started his acting journey in his 20's, but didn't find success until he properly trained and made a few tweaks to his image that allowed him to stand out to casting offices. After working behind the camera in casting offices, Jeff was primed to start his own business helping actors t...

Send us Fan Mail In this first new episode back for the new season, Lisa chats with Mary Payne Moran, a chef by trade who was inspired to write a children's book about nutrition. Mary's story is full of ups and down and over coming challenges. Her culinary career did not end up as she first thought it would, but has been so rewarding in so many unexpected ways, including with the launch...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we revisit episode 39 with Emily Ziff Griffin, a writer of fiction books, essays and screenplays. Emily started her career in her early 20's assisting and then producing films with Philip Seymour Hoffman. In her mid-30's Emily came out of the creative closet and accepted that what she truly wanted to be doing was writing and creating the stories. Her fir...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lisa chats with, author and journalist Emily Barth Isler. Emily shares how she started her creative journey as an actor, but eventually found her true passion in writing. Emily writes regularly about sustainability, organic/eco-friendly skincare, and healthy beauty products for Oprah Daily, Allure, Organic Spa, etc. Emily's first book, AfterMath is an award-w...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lisa chats with former casting director turned Mindfulness & Leadership coach, Elizabeth Boykewich. Elizabeth had an incredible career in casting discovering the hottest and most talented stars, which culminated in her becoming the Head of Casting & Talent for Freeform. However, Elizabeth found herself pursuing a new calling by earning an MA in Spiritual P...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lisa chat with stand-up comic, Adam Martinez.  Adam started performing stand-up in Chicago in his mid-thirties, and even started taking improve at Second City Chicago, but before he could finish the program,  he soon found himself relocating, thanks to his wife's career, to Orange County, California. There he was able to continue his improv training at Second...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lisa chats with successful screenwriter and aspiring author Michal Lali Kagan. Lali shares with us her creative journey which has blossomed along side a day career at Universal, as a Vice President in the credits department. Lali started working with directors and producers on incredible films, but soon found that the mental toll of working in development was taki...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lisa chats with former opera singer turned actor Stephen Cannon. Stephen is one of those braves soles who decided to change careers in middle age. He has jumped in with both feet and got right into training all over Los Angeles, including at the famous and competitive comedy school, The Groundlings. Stephen is fully committed to his craft and he shares the importa...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Lisa chats with journalist and author, Vanessa McGrady. Vanessa has written for Forbes, the New York Times, the Washington Post, KPCC/LAist and so many more publications. She is also the author of her 2019 memoir Rock Needs River about her journey to adopt her daughter. Lisa and Vanessa chat about how working in the structure of corporate environments can help stre...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lisa chats with director & writer, Mo Perkins. Mo shares with us her journey to becoming a film director including her early experiences of discovering her passion for storytelling via cinema, her experience with motherhood and filmmaking and the challenges for female filmmakers. Mo is a delight and creates art that is unapologetically feminine and we are so h...

Send us Fan Mail In this one year anniversary show, Lisa makes herself the guest and invites her dear friend and host of the Mothering Heights Podcast, Leonora Pitts, to be her guest host. Lisa and Leonora chat about the catalyst for starting the podcast, commonalities between Lisa's guest, mothering and creativity and Lisa's biggest take away from a year of interviewing middle aged arti...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Lisa chats with actor, improviser and writer Rich Baker. Lisa and Rich chat about his acting journey and transition to focus on mainly teaching, coaching, writing and working with corporations as keynote speaker and workshop facilitator. Rich and Lisa also dive into the ways in which the arts and business can benefit from  adopting each other's practices, whet...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lisa chats with actor and comedian Clayton Farris, who is best known on Instagram for his many viral videos, including Every Los Angeles Hike, Erewhon Shopper Goes to a Regular Grocery Story, Gen Z Breakup and the whole breakup series. Clayton shares with us his start stop story of moving out to Los Angeles from Dallas, Texas, finding his community and getting his...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lisa chats with actor and solo show coach, Heather Dowling. Heather started her acting career at age 39 when she and her husband picked up and moved to Los Angeles for his career. At this point in her life, Heather had been employed since the age of 14. Now, at 39 with no job and in a new city, she found the inspiration to pursue her first love, performing. It sta...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lisa chats with fictional author Deborah Willis whose first novel is set to release on June 13th. Deborah and Lisa talk parenting, juggling responsibilities when both parents are freelance artists, Deborah's journey to writing her first novel and how aging has changed Deborah's writing voice. Deborah is sweet and kind and it was delight to have her on th...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lisa chats with actor, writer, director, Frank Caeti. Frank is best known for his work on MadTV in the early 2000's, but among actor and improv circles is also known for his director and mentorship abilities. Frank has a knack for helping actors find their own voice through one person shows and has gone on to teach at Cal Arts in Valencia, CA. Lisa and Frank...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lisa chats with actress and audio book narrator, Deepti Gupta. Deepti talks about her choosing to pursue acting against her father's wishes, immigrating to the US to earn her MFA, AI and the future of the entertainment industry and how to keep our kids off screens. Deepti also teaches by virtue of sharing her story, that sometimes all you have to do is ask fo...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lisa chats with actress, writer, director, producer and mindset coach, Lynn Downey Braswell. Lynn shares with us the journey to booking some really great roles after being in Los Angeles for 9 years, which were then followed by a let down of a lull for two years. This lull led to Lynn digging deep and shifting her mindset around so many things in life including he...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lisa chats with writer Amanda Deibert. Amanda shares with us how story of how she transitioned from acting to writing for TV, which then led to writing comic books for DC, Marvel and Disney. Her writing career has extended to writing for animated shows and she was even invited to write for former Vice President Al Gore's 24 Hours of Reality. Most recently, Am...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Lisa chats with founder of LoveBug & Me Music, Mary Arden Gorman. Mary shares with us how she started the business in Topanga Canyon with a small group of caregivers and their babies and how it has now grown to 75 classes throughout Los Angeles. Mary and Lisa chat about how age may have factored into her decision to leave her music touring career and start thi...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's episode, Lisa chats with actress, filmmaker and producer, Keiko Elizabeth. Keiko found her way to performing via her first career as a middle school teacher. Through helping a student write and produce a play about the tragic loss of her brother to a drive-by shooting, Keiko was able to see and recognize that performance was where she wanted to focus her energy...