Tressa Glover’s ‘Yinz Are Good’ podcast highlights Pittsburghers’ generosity
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Aparticularly tough year has led many people to actively seek out more uplifting stories to balance out the onslaught of negativity.
Tressa Glover, of Mt. Lebanon, certainly felt that way as the COVID-19 pandemic upended our lives. A staple of the Pittsburgh acting community for a long time, she happened to be looking for a new creative pursuit. That desire wound up dovetailing nicely with her goal of raising the spirits of Western Pennsylvanians with content that aims to inspire.
Exactly a year ago Wednesday, she put out the first episode of “Yinz Are Good,” a biweekly podcast that highlights a Pittsburgh resident, business or organization that has touched the lives of others in a positive way.
“I am trying to get the good stuff that’s going on out there to everybody,” Ms. Glover told the Post-Gazette. “Especially over the last year and a half, we’re inundated more with the bad and the negative. It’s easy to forget all the good people that there are and all the good deeds people are doing for each other, big and small.”
Pittsburgh theater fans may recognize Ms. Glover from 2013’s “Charles Ives Take Me Home” at City Theatre and her 2014 onewoman show, “The Great One,” at Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater Company. She also runs the No Name Players Theater Co., which she said was on hiatus before the pandemic and will continue as such until she figures out what to do with it going forward.
She’s also done some notable Pittsburgh film and television work, including appearing in an episode of “One Dollar,” a locally shot CBS All Access drama that ran for one season, and “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” the 2019 film that featured Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers and Ms.
Glover as the mother of a young boy attending a taping of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” She fondly recalls an hour-and-a-half conversation she had with Mr. Hanks about hockey.
More recently, she did an episode of “Archive 81,” a Netflix horror series that shot here last fall and winter, and “A League of Their Own,” the Amazon Prime Video series currently filming throughout Western Pennsylvania.
This was her first podcast, and she gave herself a Google crash course in all the necessary skills she would need. It helped that she was an avid podcast listener herself, especially in the true crime genre.
“It definitely was beneficial having listened to so many podcasts because even though I was listening and not thinking that I was
going to do one of these, just starting with that helped me get a sense of how these are put together, what are the common things I find from podcast to podcast,” she said.
She does all her own interviewing, hosting, producing and editing, skills that she taught herself over the course of the pandemic. She remembered recording the first episode of “Yinz Are Good” in her bedroom closet with a flashlight and her dog crashing the session. There was a steep learning curve, but eventually she got the hang of it and started banging out episodes.
Her goal was to shine a spotlight on the stories of “everyday people” in Pittsburgh. Through 25 episodes, she has chatted with guests representing places such as the North Side restaurant Cafe on the Corner, which was her first interview and holds “a special place in my heart.” She’s also had on folks with Pittsburghbased organizations such as The Good People Network, VolunTOTS, Treasure House Fashions and The Pittsburgh VillageProject.
“YinzAre Good” is one of a few recently launched Pittsburgh podcasts. The group includes The Unqualified Therapists Inc., a podcast designed to promote mental health positivity. Hosts Amy Baumgardner and Sarah Simone will do their first live showAug. 10 at Simply Social atThe Waterfront.
“Our podcast aims to spread awareness around mental health and removing the stigma,” the two said in a joint email. “While we have a worldwide listener base, building a personal connection with our hometown community in Pittsburgh is important to us. Having this live event is the perfect way to do that.”
Ms. Glover said that “Yinz Are Good” has so far earned about 2,500 total plays, which averages out to about 100 an episode. She said it’s starting to gain traction, and she’s also been invited to a few local events such as the Bloomfield Saturday Market and the upcoming Swissvale Edible Garden Tour.
If all goes well, she’ll continue doing “Yinz Are Good” as a way of brightening Pittsburghers’ days and letting them know about organizations that are making the city a better place.
“I have enjoyed so immensely getting to ‘meet’ so many fascinating people, and not only the people I’m interviewing but everyone who is sharing a memory, a moment, a story,” she said. “I would love to keep it going, and there could be a great benefit to it, just the idea of everyone connecting in that kind of way.”