Kate Flannery as Meredith Palmer
Born on June 10, 1964 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Kate Flannery was educated at University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Her family is the proud owner of the bar TA Flannery's in downtown Philadelphia. She is a former member of The Second City's National Touring Company and an original member of Chicago's Annoyance Theater, where she created more than 15 shows, including
The Miss Vagina Pageant and
The Real Live Brady Bunch. Her comedy act, The Lampshades had been performing at the ImprovOlympic West stage in Hollywood for over four years, and had also performed at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado.
Flannery's stage performances include those in the off-Broadway hit
Valley of the Dolls at the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York City and Also in L.A. She also played a teen prostitute and Blair's sister in
The Phacts of Life at the Renberg Theatre and Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner in a production of
Hildy, Hildy, Three Feet Under at The Evidence Room.
Aside from stage acting, Flannery can also be heard on the Air America show,
Ravenburst. She is also the musical director of the Los Angeles Drama Club, where she teaches Shakespeare to children aged 5 to 8.
As for television, Flannery is best known for playing Meredith Palmer on the NBC series,
The Office. In talking about how she landed the role, she said, "The character was initially explained to me as divorced, with a hysterectomy, lactose intolerant, blue collar, no makeup. That was pretty much in the breakdown. I remember getting there and seeing some other actresses that I knew from Second City and I thought they’re going to get it, I’m not going to get it. Then, by the time I got home, I got a call from the casting director to go to another place and do it again as soon as I could get there. And they had me do it again; they had me do it just a little bit more deadpan. By the time I got home from that, I found out I got it. I didn’t even realize it was going to be a regular thing. I thought it was going to be just one episode."
