Meryl has attended yesterday’s Vassar College commencement. Pictures can be found in the Image Library with additional information below the previews.

Featured as commencement speaker was 1985 graduate Lisa Kudrow, who is also a college trustee. Kudrow told the graduates how she went from being a biology major to an actress. After graduating and doing research in her father’s headache clinic, she said, she found herself looking critically at how other actors and comedians approached their craft, and decided at 22 it was time to try her hand at acting. “I was also nervous about this career choice because I didn’t really care for actors,” Kudrow said. No one seemed to laugh more at that comment than Vassar alumna Meryl Streep, who was sitting with the other trustees.

As reported earlier, Meryl Streep has delivered this year’s commencement speech at Barnard College, yesterday. Pictures can be found in the Image Library. Her speech – with thanks to Nora – can be watched at Youtube. The additional information below comes from the New York Post and Salon.

In her lovely commencement speech at Barnard College on Monday, Meryl Streep touched on a great many things: the importance of empathy; Streep’s history, as a high school student, of performing the role of the amenable, agreeable, gaily giggling girl who appealed to boys; her experience of meeting Vassar classmates who allowed her brain to wake up.

My success has depending wholly on my putting things over on people, so I’m not sure that parents think I’m that great a role model anyway. I am however an expert in pretending to be an expert in various areas. Just randomly, like everything else in this speech, I am an expert in kissing … river rafting, miming the effects of radiation poisoning, knowing which shoes go with which bag, coffee plantationing, Polish, German, French, I-talian – that’s Iowa-talian, from “the Bridges of Madison Country,” bit of a brogue, bit of the Bronx – Aramaic, Yiddish, Irish clog dancing, cooking, singing, horse riding, knitting, playing the violin and simulating steamy sexual encounters. These are some of the areas in which I have pretended quite [successfully to be proficient in] … as have many women here, I’m sure.

Among the things she noted was that years ago, men used to tell her that their favorite of her performances was as Linda, the submissive, sweet character from “The Deerhunter.” Now, Streep said, men are more likely to tell her that their favorite of her roles is as Miranda Priestly, the icy, complicated fashion magazine editor from “The Devil Wears Prada.” This ability of men to not simply look down on or fall in love with a deflated and unthreatening female character, but instead to identify with a powerful, bossy, and intense one, is a vital sign of gender progress.

“Things are changing now,” Streep told the Barnard graduates. “And it’s in your generation that we’re seeing this. Men are adapting. They are adapting consciously and also without realizing it for the better of the whole group. They are changing their deepest prejudices to accept and to regard as normal things that their fathers would have found very very difficult and that their grandfathers would have abhorred.”

Tony Award winner Marcia Gay Harden will join the previously announced Elias Koteas, Alfred Molina, Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen, Aidan Quinn, Gloria Reuben, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, and Debra Winger for a reading of Ariel Dorfman’s Speak Truth to Power: Voices From Beyond the Dark, adapted from the book by Kerry Kennedy. David Esbjornson will direct the benefit performance, at the Public Theater on Monday, May 3 at 7pm. The reading is presented by Dorfman, Kennedy, the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, and The Public. It chronicles the true-story accounts of heroic people withstanding horrific human rights abuses across the globe. Proceeds from the reading will benefit the relief efforts of Habitat for Humanity in Chile. All ticket holders will be invited to an exclusive post-show reception featuring the cast and creative team.

For more information, visit www.publictheater.org.

Top artists from the entertainment community will come together on June 10, 2010 as AFI presents the 38th AFI Life Achievement Award – the highest honor for a career in film – to acclaimed director Mike Nichols. The 25 artists from film, television and the stage who have confirmed their participation on the AFI Benefit Committee in support of the event are: Amy Adams, Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Candice Bergen, Cher, Nora Ephron, Harrison Ford, Whoopi Goldberg, Tom Hanks, Dustin Hoffman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Shirley MacLaine, Steve Martin, Elaine May, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Mary-Louise Parker, Natalie Portman, Robert Redford, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Elizabeth Taylor, Emma Thompson, Sigourney Weaver and Robin Williams. “TV Land Presents: The AFI Life Achievement Award Honoring Mike Nichols” will air on TV Land on Sunday, June 27, 2010 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT.

According to Playbill, Alfred Molina, Julianne Moore, Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci will participate in Ariel Dorfman’s Speak Truth to Power: Voices from Beyond the Dark, chronicling global human rights abuses, at the Public Theater May 3. The Public joins Kerry Kennedy and the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights to present the reading of Kerry Kennedy’s book that has been adapted for the stage by Dorfman. Proceeds benefit Habitat for Humanity’s earthquake relief efforts in Chile. In addition to Molina, Moore, Streep and Tucci, the star-studded evening will include Elias Koteas, Viggo Mortensen, Aidan Quinn, Gloria Reuben and Debra Winger. David Esbjornson will direct.

According to the Public, “Speak Truth to Power chronicles the true-story accounts of heroic people withstanding horrific human rights abuses across the globe. Voices from around the world cry out against violence and oppression — from world leaders like Desmond Tutu to the unknown activists working on the ground level. Speak Truth to Power is a powerful and moving testimony of the will of the human spirit to rise up against injustice, even in the face of incredible darkness.”

According to the Associated Press, the Meryl Streep will be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters as an honorary member. The elite society boasts an exclusive roster of 250 members who are the crème de la crème of art, literature, and music. Academy members can nominate a new honoree if a seat is vacated. Streep has been tapped for a special category that is explained to the AP as “Americans of great distinction in the arts whose work falls outside the traditional departments.” Toni Morrison and Stephen Sondheim already hold memberships to this lofty organization.

The AP reported Streep’s response in a telephone interview as, “I have to say that I was stunned, and when they sent me the roster of people in the academy I just burst into tears.” Streep is noted for excellent performances in films such as, “Sophie’s Choice,” “Kramer vs. Kramer,” and “Julie & Julia.” Among her past honors, she’s won two Academy Awards. Of this latest thrill, she remarked, “I couldn’t believe that I’d be even allowed in the kitchen.” Streep will be formally inducted into the Academy at a ceremony next month.

Ingrid Betancourt, Franco-Colombian politician, former Senator, and anti-corruption advocate will be one of four women honored at The DVF Awards inaugural ceremony in New York City on Saturday evening, March 13th, 2010 at the United Nations. The Award will be presented to Ingrid by Meryl Streep. “I cannot think of anyone who deserves this award more than Ingrid Betancourt for her courage to fight, her power to survive and her leadership to inspire,” says Diane von Furstenberg. More information can be found at the official website. Many thanks to Caro for the heads-up!

The hallmark women’s magazine is hosting an event to honor influential females during their 125 years of publication. On April 12, in honor of their 125th anniversary, leading women’s magazine Good Housekeeping will host a one-night event in honor of our nation’s most influential women. According to a release, the event, which is being called “Shine On,” will salute icons, visionaries, goddesses, and even “hellraisers.” The New York City event is being staged to raise money to build the first permanent location for the National Women’s History Museum in Washington D.C. “Shine On” will be an original 90-minute long production featuring stars of both the stage and screen including Meryl Streep, Kristen Bell, Fran Drescher and Ann Hampton Callaway. Lynne Taylor-Corbett is directing the show, which will honor “women whose combination of intelligence, imagination and nerve changed our lives forever.” These luminaries include Susan B. Anthony, Martha Stewart, Sally Ride, Dorothy Parker and Madonna. Tickets for “Shine On” are available now on the NY City Center website.

Many thanks to Tina for passing me a list of upcoming appearances that Meryl has been announced to to in March and April 2010. From March 12 to 14, Meryl will be in New York City, on-stage at the Hudson Theatre, lending her voice to an ensemble reading of the documentary play, “Seven”, as part of the opening night festivities of The Daily Beast’s inaugural Women in the World summit. With confirmed participation from titans from all the power industries, including Madeleine Albright, Katie Couric, Barbara Walters, Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan and Julie Taymor, among others, the Women in the World summit promises to be the year’s most impressive celebration of female empowerment. More at their official website. On April 07, 2010, Meryl will present an award to the film, “Yes Madam, Sir” featuring Asia Nobel Prize winner Kiran Bedi and directed by Megan Doneman about Kiran’s story as the first police woman in India, at the 2010 EPIC Awards, created by the White House Project. On April 20, she will be again participate in “Poetry & The Creative Mind” at the Lincoln Center. And May 17 has the previously announced commencement speech at Barnard College.

Barnard Board of Trustees Chair Anna Quindlen announced Thursday evening that Meryl Streep will be the speaker at Barnard’s 118th Commencement ceremony. “On February 2nd, 2010, Meryl Streep was nominated for her 16th Oscar,” Quindlen said. “On May 17th, she will play a role she has never played before.” Streep will be speaking a year after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave her speech. “It was a challenge to follow Hillary, but I think we’ve met the challenge,” Quindlen said. “She’s a trustee at Vassar, so she walks our walk and talks our talk,” she added. Streep received her B.A. in drama from Vassar College in 1971, attended Dartmouth College as an exchange student for a semester before it became coed, and received her Master of Fine Arts from Yale School of Drama.