Courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, the first still from the upcoming “Florence Foster Jenkins” shows Meryl Streep as the notedly awful warbler cuddling up to Hugh Grant (playing her husband and manager, St. Clair Bayfield) in the back of a car and both dressed in their finest. Streep clutches a brochure for Carnegie Hall, where Jenkins famously sang to a sold out crowd in 1944 having become a huge draw for countless “fans” who appreciated her appalling sense of rhythm and pitch. The film also stars Simon Helberg, Rebecca Ferguson and Nina Arianda.

Theatre East and Yale Alumni Association of New York will present Elizabeth Parrish with the Laurette Taylor Award on Thursday, May 28th at Ramscale Studio South, 463 West Street, in the West Village Highline district, NYC. The benefit starts at 7pm with an exclusive cocktail reception, followed by dinner at 8pm. The award will be presented to Ms. Parrish by Kate Mulgrew. The ceremony will include tributes by alumna Meryl Streep and the Stella Adler Studio’s Artistic Director, Tom Oppenheim. Ms. Streep, who studied under Ms. Parrish at Yale, has publicly credited Ms. Parrish’s teachings in connection to her performance as the Witch in the recent film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Into The Woods. The complete press release can be read here.

The Criterion Collection will be releasing “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” among its selected titles on August 11, 2015. This wouldn’t be big news (except maybe to aknowledge that this is the first Streep film to be released from the Criterion Collection after “Fantastic Mr. Fox”), if it wasn’t for the special features that this new edition will include. Besides the trailer, there will be interviews with actors Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep, editor John Bloom, and composer Carl Davis as well as the 1981 episode of “The South Bank Show” featuring director Karel Reisz, novelist John Fowles, and screenwriter Harold Pinter (and, as much as I’m concerned, a vintage interview with Meryl as well). For more information, visit The Criterion Collection. Many thanks to Glenn for the heads-up.

Pathé announced in a press release that principal photography started today on “Florence Foster Jenkins”. The film will shoot for 10 weeks in the UK. The film will be directed by Stephen Frears from a screenplay by Nicholas Martin. The cast is led by Meryl Streep as Florence with Hugh Grant playing her partner St Clair Bayfield. Other roles are played by Simon Helberg, Rebecca Ferguson and Nina Arianda. “Florence Foster Jenkins” is the true story of the legendary New York heiress and socialite who obsessively pursued her dream of becoming a great opera singer. The voice she heard in her head was beautiful, but to everyone else it was hilariously awful. Her “husband” and manager, St Clair Bayfield, an aristocratic English actor, was determined to protect his beloved Florence from the truth. But when Florence decided to give a public concert at Carnegie Hall in 1944, St Clair knew he faced his greatest challenge. Stephen Frears said “I think the script is terrific. God knows the cast are sensational. Now is the time to panic!” Many thanks to Glenn for the heads-up.

Today, Sony has launched the theatrical trailer of “Ricki and the Flash”. It looks pretty much exactly what fans have been hoping for, so head over to watch it in the video archive. Additionally, screencaptures from the trailer, the first poster for the film and a bunch of new production stills have been added as well.

Article courtesy the Los Angeles Daily News: Jonathan Demme has won an Oscar and also has directed loads of Academy Award-winning performances. So when another Oscar-winner’s screenplay — Diablo Cody’s Ricki and the Flash — came his way with nomination queen Meryl Streep attached to play the San Fernando Valley cover band frontwoman forced to re-engage with her Midwestern family, it felt about as perfect as movie projects get. “ ‘Ricki’ is a truly original, way-surprising screenplay loaded with emotion, humor, great characters and great gobs of top-rate rock ’n’ roll,” Demme enthuses. “Plus, it didn’t hurt that Meryl Streep was already in line to play Ricki.” Yeah, but did the super actress with the can-do-anything reputation play the music? “You bet she did,” the director reports. “This was a no-playback, in-the-moment shoot. Meryl nailed it. She sings on 10 songs (nine rock covers and one original, written by Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice), while accompanying herself on electric or acoustic guitar. “Meryl is such a versatile and charismatic singer/performer, and her movie band the Flash is kind of an amazing supergroup. A Ricki and the Flash concert film would be a joy to capture and present.”

Yesterday, Meryl Streep joined directors Ava DuVernay and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy in a conversation panel, moderated by Jon Stewart, at the Women in the World Summit. Vanity Fair has summed up the panel, which can be watched in its entirety in the video archive. Streep described the hardest thing for an actress to do—to get anyone but women to identify with them onscreen. As evidenced by everything from the way toys are marketed to which movies win Oscars, the general assumption is that women will identify with female and male characters, while men will only identify with other men. Or, as Streep puts it, “I wanted to be Tom Sawyer, not Becky.” (The way she says “Becky,” by the way, is 19 Oscar nominations worth of talent in two syllables) For Streep, the hardest thing as an actress is “to have a story that men in the audience feel like they know what I feel like.” In the video, you can see DuVernay—who beefed up the role of Coretta Scott King in the script for Selma– and Obaid-Chinoy—who won an Oscar for a 2012 documentary about women attacked with acid in Pakistan—nodding in agreement. Pictures have been added to the image library.

A lot of great production stills and on-set pictures have been added to the galleries, including from films, television and theatre. Some very rare theater pictures from Meryl’s time with the Green Mountain Guild and at Yale’s Repertory Theatre have been added, with many thanks to Joan. Then, some fantastic new on-set pictures from “The Deer Hunter”, “Sophie’s Choice” and “Falling in Love” have been added. Many thanks to Claudia for sending them in. For a complete list, check the previews below.

According to Variety, Meryl Streep has funded a screenwriters lab for women writers over 40, to be run by New York Women in Film and Television and IRIS, a collective of women filmmakers. The creation of the lab, and Streep’s involvement in its founding, was announced Sunday at a panel discussion presented as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. Called the Writers Lab, the screenplay development program aims to increase opportunities for female screenwriters over the age of 40. This year the initiative will accept submissions May 1-June 1, with eight winning scribes named Aug. 1. Among the mentors to participate in the Lab’s inaugural year are writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood (“Beyond the Lights”), producer Caroline Kaplan (“Boyhood”), and writers Kirsten Smith (“Legally Blonde”) and Jessica Bendinger (“Bring It On”). According to NYWIFT, Streep ponied up a “significant” contribution to fully fund the Lab. The actress has been a longtime supporter of NYWIFT. The Writers Lab will take place at a retreat in upstate New York. Many thanks to Glenn for the heads-up.

Coinciding with the #VotingMatters campaign, Focus Features has released a trailer (more of a teaser of an upcoming trailer) for director Sarah Gavron’s upcoming historical drama Suffragette starring Carey Mulligan, Meryl Streep, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne-Marie Duff, Ben Whishaw and Brendan Gleeson. Check it out below after the official synopsis.

“Suffragette” is a moving drama that will empower all who are striving for equal rights in our own day and age. The stirring story, inspired by the early-20th-century campaign by the suffragettes for the right of women to vote, centers on Maud (played by Carey Mulligan), a working wife and mother who comes to realize that she must fight for her dignity both at home and in her workplace. Realizing that she is not alone, she becomes an activist alongside other brave women from all walks of life. The early efforts at resistance were passive but as the women faced increasingly aggressive police action, the suffragettes become galvanized – risking their very lives to ensure that women’s rights would be recognized and respected.

Suffragette is set for release October 23rd in the States and October 30th in the UK.