Stearn, Rosalynde

Rosalyne Stearn was born Rosalynde Osborne is considered Canada's foremost puppet theatre director. Before becoming director and producer of the King Cob Puppets, Stearn trained as a puppeteer with Lilian Owen, the assistant to German-American puppeteer Tony Sarg (1880-1942). Stearn's early work in the 1920s was with hand-puppets but in 1930 she turned to the string marionettes and produced variety shows with Muriel Heddle (Mrs. E. D. Scott). The Toronto Art Gallery in 1935 and the Montreal Museum of Fine Art in 1942 both recognised the artistic quality of her work by holding exhibitions of her puppets and arranging performances of her puppet plays. In 1938 her King Cob Company produced a puppet version of the 'Clouds' of Aristophanes which won the approval of the Professor of Classics at McMaster University and the Classical Club of Toronto; and the following year Stearn organised the first Canadian Puppet Conference at Hamilton. A historian of puppetry as well, by 1952 Stearn had brought a library on the puppet theatre as well as a collection of puppets characteristic of different times and countries.