Meryl Streep is narrating a pair of children’s classics, “The Velveteen Rabbit” and “The Night Before Christmas,” that will be released later this year as audiobooks at Starbucks coffeehouses. “This is continuing our commitment to providing customers with compelling family entertainment titles,” Starbucks Entertainment President Ken Lombard told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The audiobooks feature musical accompaniment by George Winston, the Edwin Hawkins Singers and others. After an initial four-month run at Starbucks, Random House Inc.’s Listening Library will give the recordings a general release. Starbucks Corp. has been expanding its entertainment offerings over the past few years, releasing CDs by Ray Charles and the Rolling Stones, among others, and promoting the movie “Akeelah and the Bee.” The company recently announced an alliance with the William Morris Agency, a talent and literary agency that will help Starbucks identify music, film and book projects to consider for marketing and distribution in its stores.

James Earl Jones, Meryl Streep, and Coutrney B. Vance are among the stars who will participate in the seventh annual Dramatists Guild Fund Benefit on Monday, April 10 at the Hudson Theatre. Public tickets to the entertainment portion of the event, which begins at 9pm, are now being made available to the public. There will also be a salute to the late Wendy Wasserstein by Streep and her daughter, actress Mamie Gummer, and a scene from August Wilson’s Fences performed by Jones and Vance, who starred in the show on Broadway.

The San Francisco Film Society, presenter of the San Francisco International Film Festival (April 20-May 4) features Robert’s Altman latest movie, “A Prairie Home Companion”, for the Closing Night of the Festival, on May 4, at 7.00pm, at the Castro Theater. Tickets for the general public are $25 and will be available on April 4—Tickets for San Francisco Film Society members are $20 and will go on sale on March 28. For more ticket information please visit http://www.sffs.org.

Meryl Streep, fresh from the Oscars, hosted a benefit on March 7 at Bridge & Tunnel for her charity, Equality Now. The charity, is an international human rights organization dedicated to action for the civil, political, economic and social rights of girls and women. Visit http://www.equalitynow.org/ for more information on their work.

Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep, who play sisters in Robert Altman’s upcoming comedy “A Prairie Home Companion”, have taken the stage at the 78th Academy Awards to present their director with his Lifetime Achievement Oscar. Both actresses did a masterly, breathless impression of a film by special honoree Robert Altman, replete with overlapping dialogue, half-finished thoughts and constant interruptions, a double virtuoso performance.

According to German news sources, actors George Clooney, Isabella Rossellini, Meryl Streep and Isabelle Huppert, among others, are all expected to attend the Berlin Film Festival this year. Meryl’s new film, “A Praire Home Companion”, will have its world-premiere at the festival. Screening dates and official announcements on the attending guests will be made in early February.

The Berlinale Competition is screening the world premiere of A Prairie Home Companion (USA), an ensemble comedy by master director Robert Altman. The story is about a legendary radio show which is taken off the air after thirty years. Altman, the winner of several Berlinale prizes, has assembled an unparalleled cast of stars, including Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin, Woody Harrelson, Kevin Kline and John C. Reilly. Visit the Berlinale’s Official Website.

Meryl Streep and Marcia Gay Harden are featured in a documentary on Tony Kushner, directed by Freida Lee Mock, which is having its world-premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2006. Full synopsis and airdates can be found here: Perhaps the greatest compliment to Freida Lee Mock’s film is that she does justice to her brilliant subject, entwining interviews with leading theatre artists and personal moments from Kushner’s life with scenes from his plays. Watching Marcia Gay Harden as Laura Bush in a scene from one of Kushner’s lesser-known plays is worth the price of admission itself. Hearing Meryl Streep read a prayer that Kushner wrote asking–no, demanding–God to cure AIDS will tear your heart out.

Yet another festival release for “A Prairie Home Companion”: The 2006 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference & Festival in Austin, TX will open on March 10th with the North American premiere of Robert Altman’s “A Prairie Home Companion,” organizers announced Monday. The festival will conclude on March 18th. “Prairie” was acquired by Picturehouse back in October and is described as a fictionalized look at preparations for what could be the final episode of Garrison Keillor’s legendary radio program, exploring the fallout over a big corporation buying the theater home of the weekly radio show. According to Picturehouse, “As passions erupt, secrets emerge and a mysterious stranger lurks in the shadows, the vigilant stage manger must hold it all together since the ‘show must go on’.” Set for a June release, the film was written by Altman and Keillor. You can read the complete article here.

Actors and honorary chairs of the New York Stage and Film, Kathy Bates, Chris Cooper, Lisa Kudrow Kyra Sedgwick, Kevin Bacon, Frances Sternhagen, Meryl Streep and Jon Tenney will be honoring actor David Strathairn and Frances D. Ferguson, the president of Vassar College, at their winter gala on January 16, 2006. Many thanks to Andrea for the info. Read more here.