Meet Bernadette Armstrong

We recently connected with Bernadette Armstrong and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Bernadette, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

I get my work ethic from my parents. Both were brought up in the early 1920’s with many hardships, not to mention the drought. After they were married, they had 3 kids, – Baby Boomers – including me. After WWII my dad was a blue-collar worker., and my mother was a stay-at-home mom, who baked cakes for a living – it was her form of Art.

Nothing came easy for us, and we work was the answer to being able to pay bills, save a bit for a quick vacation each year. All 3 of us kids worked from the time we were in high school. We learned early on that if you wanted something for yourself, you had to earn it. I am very proud to say that my work ethic has rubbed off on my son.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

Well, I grew up in Folsom, California, Yep, where the prison is. I have always been a reader. well known at our little library we had in town. But I must confess, every Friday I went with my dad to do the weekly shopping and couldn’t WAIT to get home to read the new TV Guide. Front to Back and then work on the crossword puzzle. My friends would ask me what was on each night or day or weekend and I always had the answer. I still love TV and I’m in heaven with streaming shows!

During summer vacation I would gather up my friends on the block to figure out something we could do to raise money and one year we had an ice cream shop in our neighbor’s garage, we did a weekly newspaper and did plays in my backyard on our deck. We didn’t make a lot of money, but we each made enough to go down to the 5 & Dime store to get treats. It was my beginning to experiencing the arts.

I’ve always been a writer. Think up things and write then down, write stories for school that and drawing. Art hasn’t stuck with me, but writing has. I always thought I would go to school and study History and English. I tried a few things after high school, and ultimately, I studied Psychology, dropped out and finally moved on to Film & Television. Never got bored getting my BA in film and Television. From there I started making short films for festivals and after a few years found Live Theater – which is what I have been doing since 2002.

When my play was canceled in Los Angeles due to the Pandemic – I created Open-Door Playhouse, a Radio Theater Podcast – and I have never looked back. I have been producing and Directing (and written a few) Plays since I opened with my canceled play, Custody, and have just kept on going.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

For me, it has always been about reading. I read everything. Magazines, news on websites, and books – fiction and non-fiction. It expands my world, knowledge and curiosity. I love history. People who don’t know history scare me sometimes. I grew up during the Vietnam war, and my relatives on both sides of my parent’s families fought in WWII. Paying attention to what is happening around us, not just my life but out there in the world, just keeps me on my toes so that when I see, hear about horrible things and wonderful things – it reminds me that I am human and (especially after some of my past events) keeps me aware. I don’t get this awareness just by reading or watching documentary’s I volunteer. Volunteering is an education in itself about oneself. Go for it. I have a lot of Trivia in my brain – and I never know when I’m going to need it. One of the most powerful things is to follow the old saying – don’t judge until you have walked in someone’s shoes.

Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?

I can’t say things changed in the last 12 months, but I can say what made a huge change in my life was caring for my mother for four years before she passed. At first, she lived with me and that went over like a ton of rocks. with her and me so after one of our arguments – I realized that she wasn’t trying to be difficult, she was just feeling lost and would step outside our house and have no place to go, wherein she could walk anywhere from her apartment and know how to get back home. She was used to a small town in the Sierra Mountains, not Los Angeles, CA.

When I took over her care her heart was failing along with her memory, I’ll admit it took me some time to realize she wasn’t my ‘mom’, she was someone who was losing ‘who she was’ and we had swapped places. She had raised me to grow up and become independent, and I was now taking away her independence. Taking care of her made me a better person, I took her to Dr’s, sat in many ER visits and watched her struggle to live. I quit, making her decisions, and let her have a say – and when she was ready, she went into hospice, and ending things on her own terms. She lost my dad at 62 yrs old, and was pursued by many after he died, but never re-married. She was, an artist, a woman who loved to dance she hated not being busy, so she would push women and men in wheelchairs around her assisted living apartment, she’d take her walker to the corner store and buy bags of peanuts for the squirrels on her deck. After she passed, I took up Hospice Work –

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.opendoorplayhouse.org – my nonprofit Theater Podcast
• Twitter: @BernadetteA26 & @opendoorpl2323