This's A Comedy Variety Show

David Schwartz, Andrew Bank Morgenthaler, Harrison Stamell. Produced by Arlin Ladue. We were all on a college improv troupe together and now live in four different cities.

Our podcast is called Act Our Age, and it's a comedy variety show where each week we find a different excuse to hang out—by doing a gastronomic review of a fast food chain, a parody of a popular television show, telling our favorite stories to corporate musak, etc.

We started this podcast at Arlin's suggestion. We'd always have these goofy conversations, and it seemed like a fun challenge to turn them into something more structured and regular while retaining their improvised nuance.

Our initial goal was to just do it. So we set up a cadence of recording and compiling and releasing. Then, as we started gaining an audience, we learned what people liked, but mostly what people hated. And then we adopted different goals: cutting down the lengths of each episode, having a clearer theme.

We started just over a year ago. Our approach was to get something out there—it didn't matter that it was far from perfect. Once we had a Thing, we could improve it.

We have an ongoing bit that we are still looking for a sponsor. In fact, this became our way of dividing up our episodes—we read fake sponsorships that we write for each other. But, hey, there's always truth in comedy. Please sponsor us. We're begging you.

We all work full time. We have a recurring calendar invite and schedule. We also meet quarterly to plan out the next series of episodes so that we can get psyched up for them before recording. Then we send over our files to Arlin, who edits and compiles them. We all own little bits of Act Our Age, such as our different social media handles, and in that way can work in concert with each other.

We most importantly have a lot of fun doing this podcast. The second most important task is to make something that gives other people a lot of fun, too.

We each have different microphone setups with pop filters. We've had so many technical difficulties throughout our two seasons—it comes with the territory.

We choose our guests based on each episode's needs and our network and friends. We have a welcome pack with information to set them up, and then all log on to the same Google Hangout and record our tracks individually in GarageBand. We tried Discord but had too many issues with it. Someone would freeze, and then we'd have to monologue, which unfortunately is our specialty.

We don't, really. We have a Twitter (twitter.com/actouragepod) and an Instagram (instagram.com/actourage), and we post when there are new episodes. While we've focused on making, we've paid less attention to marketing.

Just make it. Test it. Get it out there. It doesn't need to be a big thing. It isn't. Make an entire season you never share. Why not?

Email us at actouragepodcast@gmail.com.

Find us on Spotify (open.spotify.com/show/5crlNAq6gNhIIqrGKXI6Q3?si=Cbp9GIINQnyv960ihOB4LA),

iTunes (itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/act-our-age/id1345095894?mt=2), wherever.