Brace yourself for Meryl Streep’s best performance of the year – if not the decade! (we’re quite early into the decade, I know). She has joined director Taika Waititi, who is partnering with the Roald Dahl Story Company to read the beloved children’s novel “James and the Giant Peach” across ten installments. This star-studded reading of James and the Giant Peach is part of a campaign to raise funds for the global health non-profit Partners in Health, which is tackling the Covid-19 pandemic in some of the most vulnerable communities around the world. The Roald Dahl Story Company has announced that it will match donations up to $1 million to charities impacted by the global health crisis, such as the Roald Dahl Marvellous Children’s Charity in the UK. The first two installments are both available to watch now, with remaining episodes to be released on the Roald Dahl YouTube channel every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In the second episode, Meryl and former co-star Benedict Cumberbatch take on the roles of evil sisters Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker. You won’t find anything more entertaining to watch right now, so sit back and enjoy.

Some of the brightest stars from Broadway and Hollywood came together last night, May 18, to celebrate Covenant House, the international charity providing housing, food and healthcare to children and youth facing homelessness in 31 cities across six countries. Funds from the benefit concert are helping Covenant House COVID-19 relief efforts to provide more food, more supplies, and to continue to provide staffing to care for sick and symptomatic youth. To donate to #endyouthhomelessness, visit safeplacetosleep.org.

In 2019, the talented cast of BKLYN: The Musical reunited for one night only for a 15th anniversary reunion concert to benefit Covenant House. The show follows a group of homeless musicians known as the City Weeds who transform a street corner under the Brooklyn Bridge into their play space. The cast – Quentin Earl Darrington, Eden Espinosa, Ramona Keller Karen Olivo, Julie Reiber, Will Swenson, and Caren Tackett – reunited once again (virtually) to perform the show’s anthem to empathy, “Heart Behind These Hands” Their performance was coupled with Covenant House alumni testimonials read by Diane Keaton and Meryl Streep.

In maybe her best performance of the 1990s, Meryl Streep leads a powerhouse ensemble cast that brings together the best of three acting generations – Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, Hume Cronyn, Gwen Verdon and Leonardo DiCaprio. “Marvin’s Room” is a bittersweet drama about family, the pain it causes and the effort it takes to keep it together. Although it deals with illness, death and lost chances in life, “Marvin’s Room”‘s dry humor and fantastic acting makes it one of the most pleasent and truthful dramedies of its time.

Scott McPherson, the young playwright who wrote “Marvin’s Room”, didn’t life to see the big screen adaptation of his work. Described as “one of the brightest hopes of the Chicago theatre scene”, “Marvin’s Room” was McPherson’s last completed work and only his second full-length play before he died of AIDS-related causes in 1990, at only 33 years of age. His play premiered at the Goodman Studio Theatre in 1990 and went on to national acclaim, first at the Hartford Stage Company in Connecticut and eventually at Playwrights Horizons and the Minetta Lane Theatre off-Broadway. It won the 1992 Outer Critics Circle Award for best play, the 1992 Drama Desk Award for best play and locally the Joseph Jefferson Award for original work, among other honors. “Marvin`s Room,” about a woman battling leukemia and the unusual extended family with whom she struggles for support and dignity, is a slightly dark but comic and ultimately hopeful take on death and infirmity. The title character is an elderly, bedridden stroke victim glimpsed thoughout only through a wall of glass blocks. McPherson had completed the screenplay for “Marvin’s Room” when he died. His identity and struggle is not just background info, as it’s almost impossible to watch the film, which concerns various approaches to love and death, without realizing its particular AIDS message, as well as more universal values, such as caring for others and the strength of family bonds.

And while we’re at it, I have updated the editorial photographies as well – not as many as the magazine scans, but still some very nice additions from the very beginning of her career to the very recent. Enoy your Sunday.

Just when I finished adding newfound magazine articles to the archvie a couple of weeks ago, I realised that I forgot to add half of them :-) So, sooner than expected, here comes a second magazine update. Most are coming from Brasilian magazines, including Manchete, with some fantastic full-length articles on her breakthrough with “Holocaust” and her road to stardom with “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” and “Sophie’s Choice”. There are also a couple of scans from Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. For a complete list, have a look at the previews below. Many thanks to Alvaro for finding most of these rare articles. Much appreciated!

After receiving critical acclaim and an Oscar nomination for “The Bridges of Madison County”, Meryl Streep revived the rather unfamiliar thriller territory, playing a mother whose son is accused of murder. But if there’s one word to not describe Barbet Schroeder’s “Before and After”, it would be “thrilling”.

Director Barbet Schroeder had a lucky streak in the early 1990s with decent, intelligent thrillers. The “Barfly” director did the masterful “Reversal of Fortune” in 1990, winning Jeremy Irons an Oscar for his portrayal of Claus von Bülow (and should have won a second award for Glenn Close’s riveting performance). He continued with “Kiss of Death”, the erotic thriller “Single White Female” starring Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh, and made great thrillers after this one – “Desperate Measures” and “Murder by Numbers” among them. Schroeder was a director to work with, one that actors adored – Irons recommended him to Streep when the script for “Before and After” arrived. The story sounded promising. Well-respected parents of a small town – the father an sculptor, the mother a doctor – must come to terms with the fact that their son’s girlfriend was murdered, and their son is on the run. When he is caught and awaiting trial, they share the family’s dinner table with him, uncertain if he’s still their little boy or a cold-blooded killer. Streep shares the screen with Liam Neeson, fresh off his star-making turn in “Schindler’s List”, and Edward Furlong, in a first serious role since his own star-making turn in “Terminator 2”. Backed up by a supporting cast of Alfred Molina and John Heard and a screenplay adaptation by “The Silence of the Lambs”‘ Ted Tally – what could go wrong with “Before and After”? Well, pretty much everything.

According to Deadline, a virtual concert event to benefit the Covenant House charity for homeless and trafficked youth has lined up a 50-plus roster of stars to perform or appear for the May 18 fundraiser, including Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton, Jon Bon Jovi, Rachel Brosnahan, Stephen Colbert, Martin Short, Dolly Parton, Dionne Warwick, Stephanie J. Block, Tony Shalhoub, Charlie Day, Chris O’Dowd, Zachary Levi and Zachary Quinto. A Night of Covenant House Stars, to be held Monday, May 18 at 8 p.m ET on the Broadway on Demand streaming platform, will be co-hosted by six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald and 60 Minutes correspondent John Dickerson, both members of the Covenant House Board of Directors. The event is designed to support Covenant House, the international, mostly privately funded charity providing housing, food and healthcare to children and youth facing homelessness, and the front-line staff working during the COVID-19 crisis. “This virus does not get the last word,” said Covenant House President & CEO Kevin Ryan. “This amazing group of stars uniting in love to help us care for kids is proof positive of that.” Event proceeds will benefit Covenant House’s work across 31 cities, in six countries. The event is produced by Jeff Calhoun, the Broadway director and choreographer, and Covenant House Board member. The fundraiser will be held one day after the official launch of the Broadway on Demand platform, which kicks off with the 30 Days Of Opening Nights concert on Sunday, May 17 to benefit performers, playwrights, composers, musicians and stagehands affected by the COVID-19 health crisis. Access to view both events will be free of charge. In addition to Broadway on Demand, A Night of Covenant House Stars can be streamed on iHeartRadio Broadway, Facebook, Twitch, YouTube, and Stars in the House.

In the mid-90s, Meryl Streep’s career was revitalized by a most unlikely leading man and director. Clint Eastwood – Western hero, movie star, director and America’s man’s man – turned Robert James Weller’s kitschy best-selling novel into a tender box office hit for grown ups. Fresh off his multiple Academy Awards wins for “Unforgiven”, Eastwood took over directing duties from Steven Spielberg after being cast in the male lead – and stood by his casting choice that was unheard of in Hollywood – casting a 45-year-old woman to play a 45-year-old woman.

Robert James Waller’s novel (called “arguably the world’s longest greeting card” by the New York Times) about the four-day love affair between a travelling professional photographer who had come to Madison County, Iowa, and a Italian-American housewife whose family was way, was optioned by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment before its publication in 1991 – by the time of the film’s release, the novel sold 9.5 million copies worldwide. Spielberg wanted to produce the film with Amblin and first asked Sydney Pollack to direct, who got Kurt Luedtke to draft the first version of the adaptation but then bowed out. After a second draft by Ronald Bass fell through, a third draft of the script by Richard LaGravenese was liked by Eastwood, who quite early had been cast for the male lead, and by Spielberg, who liked LaGravenese’s version enough to consider making Bridges his next film after “Schindler’s List”, which was in post-production at the time. Both men liked that LaGravenese’s script presented the story from Francesca’s point of view. Spielberg then had LaGravenese introduce the framing device of having Francesca’s adult children discover and read her diaries. Somewhere along the road, Spielberg decided not to direct it after all, and after his next best choice Bruce Beresford dropped out as well, Eastwood decided he could direct it as well. His last directorial effort, “Unforgiven”, won him two Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture, as well as a Best Actor nomination.

In a recent interview with Collider for his new Netflix limited series Hollywood, Murphy shared the latest status on this film, called The Prom. Thankfully, Murphy seems to have finished nearly all of his principal photography before the pandemic hit, especially with lead performers like Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, James Corden, Andrew Rannells, and others. Because of this, Murphy believes they can still hit their planned release window: “All of the leads had wrapped. The last scene that I shot was Nicole Kidman’s last scene. Meryl had finished and James Corden had finished, and Andrew Rannells and Nicole had all finished. The only thing that I had is I had two days of second unit pickup… I hope this summer I can go back and quickly pick them up… The movie was supposed to come out right around Christmas, was the plan. November, Thanksgiving, Christmas in that window. Hopefully, I’ll be able to still do that.” A Murphy-directed movie musical based on the hit Broadway musical about out-of-touch theater stars who flock to a small town to force their high school to allow a gay couple to attend prom, with this bonkers cast, sounds like the perfect holiday season pick-me-up, particularly after this dreadfully quarantined summer we’re all having. Murphy was immediately attracted to the progressive nature of the material, saying, “I love the message of it. I really related to the protagonist. Emma is from Indiana and is not allowed to go to her prom because she’s gay. And I’m from Indiana and I wasn’t allowed to take a man or a male compadre to my prom. I related to it, so I believed in the message.”

And for fans of The Prom wondering what tunes from the show made it? Murphy gave us this big update: We used all the songs and then we’ve written one new song for it, one new original piece for The Prom. That was really fun to work on and it’s a great ballad, and it’s really a moving song about acceptance and prejudice. I think a lot of people will love it. Yeah, we kept every song and we added one, which is a lot, but it’s fun, worth it. Like many other movie musicals, the team has added a new song to the roster of existing material — often a play at an Oscar for Best Original Song. It’s also surprising to hear they’re keeping every single song from the original show in — usually a few tunes get cut when stage musicals are turned into films (i.e. “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” somehow not making it into Sweeney Todd). This sounds like it’ll be quite the tune-filled affair — and here’s hoping the new song blends in with the rest well enough. As for how Murphy got this star-studded cast to sing these well-known (and one original) song? Well, all he had to do was ask: “I’ve never done this in my career, but I called up three people I’ve always wanted to work with, which was Meryl Streep and James Corden and Nicole Kidman. And I said, ‘I want to do this. I believe in it. I want to work with you. Do you want to do it?’ And all three of them went to see [the play] within that week, I think, and they all called and instantly said, ‘Yes, I will do it.’ The fact that I could get Meryl Streep to love it and be into it and believe in it as much as I did, I just couldn’t believe that I got Meryl Streep to say yes in a one week window.” Many thanks to Glenn for the heads-up.

Meryl Streep, Christine Baranski and Audra McDonald wowed on Sunday night during an online concert celebrating the 90th birthday of legendary Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim. Appearing from their respective homes in their bathrobes, the actresses performed a spot-on and hilarious rendition of “The Ladies Who Lunch” from Sondheim’s 1970 musical “Company” – complete with swigs from wine goblets and cocktail glasses (and in Streep’s case, directly from the bottle). The actresses seemed to relish the “I’ll drink to that” refrain from the classic tune, which was first performed by Elaine Stritch on Broadway (and more recently by Patti LuPone in a revival that was due to open this month before the coronavirus pandemic shut down Broadway theaters). The trio joined a host of Tony-winning luminaries for the online event, including Neil Patrick Harris, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Patti LuPone, Bernadette Peters, Josh Groban, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jason Alexander and even Steven Spielberg (who didn’t sing but gave an online shout-out to Sondheim). Tony winner Raúl Esparza helped organize the event to raise money for Artists Striving to End Poverty), which generated donations through the Broadway.com YouTube channel. Drama Desk Award winner Mary-Mitchell Campbell served as music director for the concert, with Paul Wontorek directing. Watch the full “The Ladies Who Lunch” performance above. You can also check out the full two-hour-plus concert, “Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration,” here.