Background
She was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Juanita (née Coleman) and Harold Talmadge Meek, and is the maternal granddaughter of the Reverend Horatius "His (or Her) Highness" Coleman, pastor of the Greater Macedonia Baptist Church.
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Barbara Meek
Edit ProfileEducation
Wayne State University.
Career
She was a graduate of Northwestern High School, and as an undergraduate was asked to join Wayne State University"s graduate theater program In 1965, Meek toured with the United Services Organization, performing for wounded soldiers on Okinawa and other United States. Army bases. Highlights of Meek"s stage career at Trinity included 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.
In 2008, Meek appeared in Blithe Spirit at Trinity Representative, and Curt Columbus" adaptation of Antigone. She was in Camelot, The Crucible and Steel Magnolias during the 2010-2011 season, and Sparrow Grass in the 2011-2012 season.
Meek played the role of Sadie in Having Our Say at Trinity Representative, 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 also performed at Hilberry Repertory Theatre, the Dallas Theater Center, the Cleveland Play House, The Repertory Theater of Saint Louis, the Hampton Playhouse, The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and the Brandeis University Theatre.
Meek died on October 3, 2015 of a heart attack. She is survived by a daughter.
Achievements
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Mississippi Meek 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 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.
Membership
Since 1968, Meek was an active member of the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island, and appeared in more than 100 Trinity Representative stage productions. Meek was a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority while attending college.
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Born
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Died
October 3, 2015 (aged 81) -
Nationality
United States