“Who’d have guessed that this autumn, the hottest, busiest, sassiest woman in Hollywood would be a 57-year-old mother of four?,” wrote the New York Magazine in an article that labeled the year 2006 as the “Summer of Streep”. A collaboration with one of America’s finest directors, the lead in a box office hit and a return to Shakespeare in the Park – in this case “Brecht in the Park”, gave Meryl Streep’s career yet another re-invention, if not certification of being America’s leading actress. June saw the release of two films – Robert Altman’s love letter to the radio show “A Prairie Home Companion” and its last broadcast (unfortunately, it was also Altman’s last film). Streep’s role as country singer Yolanda Johnson gave her another chance to use her incredible vocal talents on film.
Her vocals were turned down considerably for the second June release – a film that would turn Meryl Streep the actress into Meryl Streep the megastar. In the “The Devil Wears Prada”, based on Lauren Weisberger’s novel, Meryl Streep played the stern, haughty “boss from hell”, Miranda Priestly, who gives a young intern a life lesson on what matters in life, and what’s at stake. The film was a hit with critics and audiences, grossing over 100 million dollars in the USA alone. In August of 2006, Streep’s name lured thousands into Central Park to see her illuminate the noxious struggles of “Mother Courage and Her Children”, which was directed by George C. Woolfe, and which remains Meryl’s last performance in the theatre to date.
