The following article from the Connecticut Theater Reviews not only features some great remarks by Meryl on her early stage work but also four amazing pictures from her collaboration with the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in 1975. The complete article can be read here and below.

I just got off the phone, talking to Meryl Streep about the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, and its second Tony Award — this one for outstanding regional theater, which was presented during last night’s Tony ceremonies at Radio City Music Hall. Streep spent a summer at the O’Neill 35 years ago when she was a young actress starting out, fresh out of her three years at Yale School of Drama. While at the O’Neill in 1975 she appeared among projects in a John Guare play being developed there called “Marco Polo Sings a Solo” and Jeff Wanshel’s “Isadora Duncan Sleeps with the Russian Navy.” Also in the staged reading were actors Joel Brooks, Jay Garner and Kevin O’Connor.

As reported earlier, Meryl has attended the AFI Lifetime Achievment Award to director Mike Nichols, yesterday. Pictures have been added to the Image Library with more information below. It was a reunion with lots of her Nichols-directed co-stars – Cher of “Silkwood”, Jack Nicholson of “Heartburn” and Shirley MacLaine of “Postcards from the Edge”. The tribute to Nichols airs June 26 on TV Land.

I remember on ‘Silkwood’ once, you said to me, ‘You know, directing is like making love.’ And I said, ‘Eww, I don’t even know him that well. Why is he telling me this?’ ‘Because,’ you went on, ‘you never know if you’re doing it right or as well as the other guy.’ I just found that insecurity so completely disarming, and, well, you know, I started to fall in love with you over and over and over again.

Introduced by Streep at the end of the evening, Nichols gushed thanks for his costume designers, cinematographers, script supervisors, makeup artists, composers and other associates. “If I thanked everyone who contributed importantly over the years, we would be here until Miley Cyrus’ AFI award,” Nichols said. “All of you made me feel I got away with it. I love the process of making a movie, and doing it with all of you was – despite the fear, the pressure, the budget – happiness.”

Director Mike Nichols will be receiving the 2010 AFI Lifetime Achievement Award tomorrow (which Meryl will be attending), and in today’s Los Angeles Times, he has talked about a few of the actors he has worked with, Meryl included. Nichols directed her to best actress Oscar nominations for 1983’s “Silkwood” and 1990’s “Postcards From the Edge,” to an Emmy in 2003’s “Angels in America,” and in 1985’s “Heartburn”):

Meryl can be anyone. Nobody understands what she does and how she does it. It’s great to be near her and to be part of it; it’s great to see her happen. The thing I always say is that she’s never lost an iota of the joy of doing it.

The creators of the People’s Choice Awards’ official website have launched an impressive video archive with all previous winners – that means quite a lot never-before seen archive footage of Meryl since won the award in 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1989 and 1990! Clips from all appearances have been uploaded to the video archive (the 1986 and 1990 clips have been re-added with better quality). Captures from all ceremonies have been added to the Image Library as well, so enjoy this fantastic journey through the years!

On May 27, Meryl Streep has accepted an honorary degree at Harvard Universities commencement in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Pictures can be found in the Image Library, a video will follow later.

Here are some fantastic video additions that help to complete the archives big time :-) First is a segment from the 1982 Academy Awards, when Meryl received her first Best Actress nomination for “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”. With this being added, all her Oscar appearances are now complete :-) Then, with many thanks to DVDGuy there are two clips of Meryl attending the 1986 People’s Choice Awards, winning as Best Actress and Best Allround Entertainer. And finally, with many thanks to Daniel, two clips of Meryl presenting the Lifetime Achievement Award to Paul McCartney at the 1990 Grammy Awards. Thanks both for these teriffic finds! Screencaps from these appearances have been added to the Image Library as well. Edit: The People’s Choice Awards videos have been re-uploaded, see this update for more information.

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.

The recenlty released Blu-Ray edition of “Out of Africa” features a bunch of never-before-seen deleted scenes of the 1985 film. With many thanks to Tina, captures from those can be now found in the Image Library. Also, with thanks to Nora, a compilation of the scenes is available on Youtube. Enjoy!

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.”

A starry cast, featuring Marcia Gay Harden, Alfred Molina, Julianne Moore, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, Elias Koteas, Viggo Mortensen, Aidan Quinn, Gloria Reuben and Debra Winger, presented a concert reading of Ariel Dorfman’s “Speak Truth to Power: Voices from Beyond the Dark” May 3 to benefit Habitat for Humanity’s earthquake relief efforts in Chile.

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.”