Noreen Young, a founder and the artistic director of Almonte’s Puppets Up festival, has died of a stroke after a long creative career.
Established in 2004, the festival drew top puppet performers from around the world and brought thousands of visitors to town each summer. Financial pressures forced the suspension of the festival in 2017, but it was revived in 2022 after a concerted effort by local volunteers.
Noreen grew up in Ottawa and moved to Almonte in 1983. Her brother Stephen Brathwaite lives near Pakenham and is known for his heritage renovations of properties there and in Almonte. Their brother John also lived here and was a noted cabinetmaker.
Noreen’s influential career in puppetry began in the 1960s and included regular performances at Ottawa’s Le Hibou coffee house. Its founder, Denis Faulkner, said in an online recollection, “Noreen was a wonderful person to work with, always in good humour, very professional, and a very imaginative puppet maker.” He first met Noreen at the CBC when he was director of a children’s show called Jack in the Box, in which she had a puppet segment.
Faulkner also produced episodes of Noreen’s CBC TV show Hi Diddle Day, which aired from 1969 to 1976.
In 1979 she founded Noreen Young Productions, and in 1983 launched the popular children’s show Under the Umbrella Tree on CBC. It ran for 285 episodes and ended in 1993. In 1990 the show was picked up by the Disney Channel.
Noreen created caricature puppets of prominent figures such as Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge, hockey commentator Don Cherry and former prime minister Jean Chretien. In 2017 two of the puppets were put on permanent display at Canada’s Museum of History.
Here in Almonte she was known for her many caricature puppets of local residents, including former mayors Al Lunney, John Levi and Shaun McLaughlin.
In 1994 Noreen was awarded the Order of Canada for using “puppetry to educate children on such crucial issues as safety, nutrition, environmental awareness and addictions… Her Canadian, family-oriented programs, all of high quality, have been a breath of fresh air in a medium often dominated by other countries and by violence.”
Her brother Stephen says of Noreen, “She loved Almonte and wanted to contribute. She knew Puppets Up was an economic development tool as much as a cultural event. For her, puppetry was an act of love. She touched so many.”
