Barbara Meek
Encyclopedia
Barbara Anita Meek is an American
actress.
Barbara Meek is best known to television viewers for playing the character of Ellen Canby for three seasons on Archie Bunker's Place
. Since 1968, Meek has been an active member of the Trinity Repertory Company
in Providence, Rhode Island
, and has appeared in more than 100 Trinity Rep stage productions.
She was born in Detroit, Michigan
, to Juanita and Harold Meek, the granddaughter of the Reverend Horatius "H.H." Coleman, pastor of the Greater Macedonia Baptist Church. She is a graduate of Northwestern High School
, and as an undergraduate was asked to join Wayne State University
's graduate theater program. Meek was a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha
sorority while attending college. In 1965, Meek toured with the United Services Organization, performing for wounded soldiers on Okinawa and other U.S. Army bases. In 1968, she joined the Trinity Repertory Company with her husband, Martin Molson (1928–1980), where they debuted together in Brother to Dragons. She has one child, Leslie Matuko Molson.
Highlights of Meek's stage career at Trinity include leading roles in the August Wilson
plays Fences
and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
, James Purdy
's Eustace Chisholm and the Works, Athol Fugard
's Boesman and Lena, Peer Gynt
, The Threepenny Opera
, Tartuffe
, The Visit
, , Fires in the Mirror
, Adrian Hall
and Robert Cumming's adaptation of A Christmas Carol
(including the role of "Ebenezer Scrooge
"), Terrence McNally
's Master Class, Henry IV, Tennessee Williams
' Suddenly Last Summer and, more recently, Lorraine Hansberry
's Raisin in the Sun and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Meek also appeared in the Broadway production of Wilson in the Promised Land.
Meek played the role of Sadie in Having Our Say at Trinity Rep, a role she reprised for the play's European premiere at Vienna
's English Theatre. In 1996, Meek appeared in the world premiere of A Lesson Before Dying by Romulus Linney
at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival
. Meek has also performed at Hilberry Repertory Theatre, the Dallas Theater Center, the Cleveland Play House
, The Repertory Theater of St. Louis, the Hampton Playhouse, The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and the Brandeis University Theatre.
Meek's other television roles include Adrian Hall's adaptations of Robert Penn Warren
's Brother to Dragons, Edith Wharton
's The House of Mirth
, and Harriet Beecher Stowe
's Life Among the Lowly, all broadcast on PBS
; Melba, starring Melba Moore
, on ABC
; and Big Brother Jake, starring Jake Steinfeld
, on The Family Channel
. Meek was also featured in the Emmy Award-winning television movie See How She Runs with Joanne Woodward
, and the television movie Jimmy B. and Andre, starring Susan Clark
and Alex Karras
.
Ms. Meek has received an Honorary Doctor of Arts Degree from the University of Rhode Island
, and the 2004 Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts. She also been received the Foundation for Repertory Theatre Award, the Wayne State University
Arts Achievement Award in Theatre, and the Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence.
In 2006, she was awarded The Edward Bannister and Christiana Bannister History Makers Award from the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society.
In 2008, Meek appeared in Blithe Spirit
at Trinity Rep, and Curt Columbus' adaptation of Antigone
.
Meek is currently in the cast of Camelot at Trinity Rep, and will appear in The Crucible and Steel Magnolias during the 2010-2011 season.
Meek's hobbies include crossword puzzles and old-fashioned cooking; she is an aficionado of jazz, opera, and Akvavit.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actress.
Barbara Meek is best known to television viewers for playing the character of Ellen Canby for three seasons on Archie Bunker's Place
Archie Bunker's Place
Archie Bunker's Place is an American sitcom originally broadcast on the CBS network, conceived in 1979 as a spin-off and continuation of All in the Family. While not as popular as its predecessor, the show maintained a large enough audience to last for four seasons, until its cancellation in 1983...
. Since 1968, Meek has been an active member of the Trinity Repertory Company
Trinity Repertory Company
Trinity Repertory Company is a non-profit regional theater located in Providence, Rhode Island. The theater is a member of the League of Resident Theatres. Founded in 1963, the theater is "one of the most respected regional theatres in the country"...
in Providence, Rhode Island
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
, and has appeared in more than 100 Trinity Rep stage productions.
She was born in Detroit, Michigan
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
, to Juanita and Harold Meek, the granddaughter of the Reverend Horatius "H.H." Coleman, pastor of the Greater Macedonia Baptist Church. She is a graduate of Northwestern High School
Northwestern High School (Michigan)
Northwestern High School is a secondary education facility in Detroit, Michigan. The most recent enrollment figures for Northwestern indicate a student population of approximately 2,000. Northwestern High School features numerous extracurricular activities; including: Debate, US Army JROTC,...
, and as an undergraduate was asked to join Wayne State University
Wayne State University
Wayne State University is a public research university located in Detroit, Michigan, United States, in the city's Midtown Cultural Center Historic District. Founded in 1868, WSU consists of 13 schools and colleges offering more than 400 major subject areas to over 32,000 graduate and...
's graduate theater program. Meek was a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha
Alpha Kappa Alpha
Alpha Kappa Alpha is the first Greek-lettered sorority established and incorporated by African American college women. The sorority was founded on January 15, 1908, at Howard University in Washington, D.C., by a group of nine students, led by Ethel Hedgeman Lyle...
sorority while attending college. In 1965, Meek toured with the United Services Organization, performing for wounded soldiers on Okinawa and other U.S. Army bases. In 1968, she joined the Trinity Repertory Company with her husband, Martin Molson (1928–1980), where they debuted together in Brother to Dragons. She has one child, Leslie Matuko Molson.
Highlights of Meek's stage career at Trinity include leading roles in the August Wilson
August Wilson
August Wilson was an American playwright whose work included a series of ten plays, The Pittsburgh Cycle, for which he received two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama...
plays Fences
Fences
Fences is a 1983 play by American playwright August Wilson. Set in the 1950s, it is the sixth in Wilson's ten-part Pittsburgh Cycle. Like all of the Pittsburgh plays, Fences explores the evolving African-American experience and examines race relations, among other themes...
and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is a 1982 play - one of the ten-play Pittsburgh Cycle by August Wilson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright - that chronicles the twentieth century African American experience...
, James Purdy
James Purdy
James Otis Purdy was a controversial American novelist, short story-writer, poet, and playwright who, since his debut in 1956, published over a dozen novels, and many collections of poetry, short stories, and plays. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages. He has been praised by...
's Eustace Chisholm and the Works, Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director who writes in English, best known for his political plays opposing the South African system of apartheid and for the 2005 Academy-Award winning film of his novel Tsotsi, directed by Gavin Hood...
's Boesman and Lena, Peer Gynt
Peer Gynt
Peer Gynt is a five-act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen, loosely based on the fairy tale Per Gynt. It is the most widely performed Norwegian play. According to Klaus Van Den Berg, the "cinematic script blends poetry with social satire and realistic scenes with surreal ones"...
, The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera is a musical by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with translator Elisabeth Hauptmann and set designer Caspar Neher. It was adapted from an 18th-century English ballad opera, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, and offers a Marxist critique...
, Tartuffe
Tartuffe
Tartuffe is a comedy by Molière. It is one of his most famous plays.-History:Molière wrote Tartuffe in 1664...
, The Visit
The Visit
The Visit is a 1956 tragicomic play by Swiss dramatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt.-Plot summary:...
, , Fires in the Mirror
Fires in the Mirror
Fires in the Mirror is a play by American playwright, author, actress, and professor Anna Deavere Smith. It chronicles the viewpoints of people connected to the Crown Heights, Brooklyn, crisis of 1991.-Context:...
, Adrian Hall
Adrian Hall (director)
Adrian Hall ia an American theatre director. In his career, he has seen his belief in the primacy of the artist and in the value of the confrontation between actor and audience come to full fruition...
and Robert Cumming's adaptation of A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of...
(including the role of "Ebenezer Scrooge
Ebenezer Scrooge
Ebenezer Scrooge is the principal character in Charles Dickens's 1843 novel, A Christmas Carol. At the beginning of the novel, Scrooge is a cold-hearted, tight-fisted and greedy man, who despises Christmas and all things which give people happiness...
"), Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally is an American playwright who has received four Tony Awards, an Emmy, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been a member of the Council of the...
's Master Class, Henry IV, Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
' Suddenly Last Summer and, more recently, Lorraine Hansberry
Lorraine Hansberry
Lorraine Hansberry was an African American playwright and author of political speeches, letters, and essays...
's Raisin in the Sun and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Meek also appeared in the Broadway production of Wilson in the Promised Land.
Meek played the role of Sadie in Having Our Say at Trinity Rep, a role she reprised for the play's European premiere at Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
's English Theatre. In 1996, Meek appeared in the world premiere of A Lesson Before Dying by Romulus Linney
Romulus Linney (playwright)
Romulus Zachariah Linney IV was an American playwright and professor.-Life and career:Linney was born in Philadelphia, the son of Maitland Clabaugh and Romulus Zachariah Linney III. His great-grandfather was Republican Congressman Romulus Zachariah Linney. Linney was raised in Boone, North...
at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival
Alabama Shakespeare Festival
The Alabama Shakespeare Festival is the seventh largest Shakespeare festival in the world. Each year, it attracts more than 300,000 visitors from throughout the United States and more than 60 countries, to its home in Montgomery, Alabama....
. Meek has also performed at Hilberry Repertory Theatre, the Dallas Theater Center, the Cleveland Play House
Cleveland Play House
The Cleveland Play House is a professional regional theater company located in Cleveland, OH. As of 2005, the artistic director is Michael Bloom, the eighth artistic director since its inception. In 2011 they moved operations to the Allen Theatre in Playhouse Square Center.Founded in 1915,...
, The Repertory Theater of St. Louis, the Hampton Playhouse, The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and the Brandeis University Theatre.
Meek's other television roles include Adrian Hall's adaptations of Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the influential literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935...
's Brother to Dragons, Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton , was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer.- Early life and marriage:...
's The House of Mirth
The House of Mirth
The House of Mirth , is a novel by Edith Wharton. First published in 1905, the novel is Wharton's first important work of fiction, sold 140,000 copies between October and the end of December, and added to Wharton's existing fortune....
, and Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...
's Life Among the Lowly, all broadcast on PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
; Melba, starring Melba Moore
Melba Moore
Beatrice Melba Smith , known by her stage name, Melba Moore is an American disco, R&B singer and actress. She is the daughter of saxophonist Teddy Hill and R&B singer Bonnie Davis.-Early life:...
, on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
; and Big Brother Jake, starring Jake Steinfeld
Jake Steinfeld
Jake Steinfeld is an American actor and fitness personality. He has a line of fitness equipment called "Body by Jake" and also once hosted a Body by Jake TV show. He also starred on a sitcom on the Family Channel called Big Brother Jake. In 1985, he played a small role in the Jeff Goldblum comedy...
, on The Family Channel
The Family Channel
The Family Channel may refer to:* Television networks preceding ABC Family, an American cable television network that ran from 1988 to 1998 by Christian Broadcasting Network...
. Meek was also featured in the Emmy Award-winning television movie See How She Runs with Joanne Woodward
Joanne Woodward
Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward is an American actress, television and theatrical producer, and widow of Paul Newman...
, and the television movie Jimmy B. and Andre, starring Susan Clark
Susan Clark
Susan Clark is a Canadian actress, possibly best-known for her role as Katherine on the American television sitcom Webster, on which she appeared with her husband, Alex Karras.-Personal life:...
and Alex Karras
Alex Karras
Alexander George "Alex" Karras , nicknamed "The Mad Duck", is a former football player, professional wrestler, and actor, best known for his stint with the Detroit Lions of the National Football League from 1958–1962 and 1964-1970 and for his role as Mongo in the film Blazing Saddles...
.
Ms. Meek has received an Honorary Doctor of Arts Degree from the University of Rhode Island
University of Rhode Island
The University of Rhode Island is the principal public research university in the U.S. state of Rhode Island. Its main campus is located in Kingston. Additional campuses include the Feinstein Campus in Providence, the Narragansett Bay Campus in Narragansett, and the W. Alton Jones Campus in West...
, and the 2004 Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts. She also been received the Foundation for Repertory Theatre Award, the Wayne State University
Wayne State University
Wayne State University is a public research university located in Detroit, Michigan, United States, in the city's Midtown Cultural Center Historic District. Founded in 1868, WSU consists of 13 schools and colleges offering more than 400 major subject areas to over 32,000 graduate and...
Arts Achievement Award in Theatre, and the Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence.
In 2006, she was awarded The Edward Bannister and Christiana Bannister History Makers Award from the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society.
In 2008, Meek appeared in Blithe Spirit
Blithe Spirit (play)
Blithe Spirit is a comic play written by Noël Coward which takes its title from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "To a Skylark" . The play concerns socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to...
at Trinity Rep, and Curt Columbus' adaptation of Antigone
Antigone
In Greek mythology, Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, Oedipus' mother. The name may be taken to mean "unbending", coming from "anti-" and "-gon / -gony" , but has also been suggested to mean "opposed to motherhood", "in place of a mother", or "anti-generative", based from the root...
.
Meek is currently in the cast of Camelot at Trinity Rep, and will appear in The Crucible and Steel Magnolias during the 2010-2011 season.
Meek's hobbies include crossword puzzles and old-fashioned cooking; she is an aficionado of jazz, opera, and Akvavit.