Many thanks to Julie for passing the following information to me. November 16th, 2011 will mark the official opening of the first U.S.-China Forum on The Arts and Culture in Beijing. This four-day event will involve the participation of an extraordinary line-up of American cultural icons, including Meryl Streep, film director Joel Coen, musician Yo-Yo Ma, among others, who will engage in dialogue and perform with their Chinese counterparts. A special screening of “The Iron Lady” will be held on Nov. 19, 2011 at 7:30pm local time, in the National Museum of China, with a follow-up discussion after the screening.

Presenters for Thursday’s New York ceremony will include Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren and directors Taylor Hackford, Steven Soderbergh and Martin Scorsese. The DGA Honors are the guild’s annual honorary awards; they go to individuals and institutions “that have made distinguished contributions to American culture through the world of film and television.” Belzer has hosted three times in the past. This year’s honorees are director/writer/producer Nora Ephron, senator Patrick Leahy, IATSE International president Matthew Loeb, HBO Documentary Films president Sheila Nevins and filmmaker Alice Guy Blache. Streep will present the award to Ephron, Mirren and DGA vice president Paris Barclay to Leahy, DGA president Hackford and DGA national executive director Jay Roth to Loeb, Soderbergh to Nevins, and Scorsese to Blache. The ceremony will take place on Thursday, October 13 at the DGA Theater in New York City.

This coming November, Meryl Streep will be special guest at a gala honoring women from the past and present who have shaped history. Streep will be attending the National Women’s History Museum’s de Pizan Honors in November in Washington DC. The Museum’s mission is to educate the public about the women who have significantly shaped our world; the National Women’s History Museum will honor history-makers to ensure that their legacy remains alive. Each year, NWHM will pay tribute posthumously to selected women with an award in their name presented to a contemporary counterpart. The lives and contributions of the recipients of the de Pizan Honors will have a permanent presence, exhibited within the soon-to-be-constructed world- class National Women’s History Museum, at the National Mall in Washington, DC, which will ensure that these women have a permanent place in history. Streep is National Spokesperson for the National Women’s History Museum, and hosts their annual gala every year. At last year’s event, she donated $1 million to the cause. She has also participated in numerous high profile events for the Museum, including Shine On at Radio City Music Hall for two consecutive years. The Museum is a very important cause near to Meryl’s heart. The de Pizan Honors take place on November 16, at the Ronald Reagan Building Amphitheater, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC. More information will be released over the coming weeks. For more information about the National Women’s History Museum, click here. Article courtesy Look at the Stars.

The Arts Initiative at Ohio State has posted additional pictures from the Margo Jones Award. While in NYC for the July 12th OSU/RSC Gala event members of The Arts Initiative team attended the 2011 Margo Jones Award ceremony at Lincoln Center. The 2011 Margo Jones Award winner is Anne Cattaneo, Dramaturg of Lincoln Center. Among those attending the award ceremony were actresses Meryl Streep and Blair Brown. The Award is given annually by OSU’s Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute. Also there to honor Cattaneo were actresses Mamie Gummer, Blair Brown, Deborah Rush and Lois Smith.

Info courtesy Broadwayworld. On July 11, the Ohio State University Arts and Humanities and University Libraries’ Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute presented the prestigious 2011 Margo Jones Award to Lincoln Center Theater dramaturg Anne Cattaneo in a ceremony in the Vivian Beaumont Theater. The award was presented to Ms. Cattaneo by Ohio State University Arts and Humanties

Dean Mark Shanda, joined by Ms. Cattaneo’s colleagues LCT Artistic Director Andre Bishop, playwright John Guare and actress Meryl Streep – who worked together on the 1978 television film “Uncommon Women and Others” and 1983’s “Sophie’s Choice”. A picture of Meryl, among others from the event, can be found on the Another Eye Opens blog.

Opening night of the World Science Festival in New York is going to feature a more glittering lineup of stars than most Broadway shows. Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Allison Janney, Liev Schreiber, David Morse and Bill Camp are among the actors coming together on June 1 at Alice Tully Hall to participate in a reading of a new play written by Alan Alda about the scientist Marie Curie. Mr. Alda, who has written five screenplays and a carton-full of television scripts, said on Monday that “Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie,” is his first attempt at playwriting. The idea struck him about three years ago when he was planning to organize a reading of excerpts from Curie’s letters for the World Science Festival. “Then I found out her letters were all still radioactive and I switched to Albert Einstein,” said Mr. Alda, who has a passion for science. “But I love Marie Curie and I think her story is so important and dramatic, I wanted to explore it and write a play about it.” The full article can be read at the New York Times.

On April 28, Meryl has attended the MindUp Gala, held by her friend Goldie Hawn’s The Hawn Foundation. Pictures can be found in the image libary. The MindUp program features lessons to improve behavior and learning for children. More information can be found at the foundation’s official website.

Yesterday, Meryl has attended Good Housekeeping’s Annual Shine on Awards, as earlier reported. Pictures from the event have been added to the image library.

On Tuesday, April 12, Good Housekeeping salutes nine extraordinary women whose combination of intelligence, imagination and nerve is changing women’s lives forever at “Shine On,” a special one-night-only theatrical event at Radio City Music Hall with special appearances by two-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep, three-time Grammy Award winner Trisha Yearwood in her first New York City performance in five years and Academy Award winner Goldie Hawn. Highlights of the evening will include a special tribute to Elizabeth Taylor by business partner and friend Kathy Ireland and an opening performance by Grammy Award-winner Eve, who wrote an original song for the occasion. The star-studded event benefits the National Women’s History Museum in Washington, D.C., which is dedicated to preserving, interpreting, and celebrating the diverse historic contributions of women. Tickets for the one-night-only show are available at www.goodhousekeeping.com/shine-on.

According to the Lincoln Center website, Meryl Streep leads some of America’s foremost artists, scholars, and public figures in this extraordinary evening celebrating the role of contemporary poetry in American culture. Wednesday, April 27, 2011 6:30 PM. Alice Tully Hall, Starr Theater.