Actors Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci make William Steig’s characters come alive in the six stories they read on “The One and Only Shrek!” It’s captivating listening. Tucci’s gruffy voice is perfect for the wickedly ugly Shrek, the character who inspired the current movie. And Streep’s sweet voice brings out the lovable side of Pearl in magical story “The Amazing Bone.” Among the four other Steig stories they read is the clever mouse dentist, “Doctor De Soto.” This first-rate audiobook launches Audio Renaissance’s children’s program. For more information, please visit Audiorenaissance.com and williamsteig.com.

According to this source, Meryl Streep will lend her good name, and her physical presence, to Belfast’s Metropolitan Arts Center in an effort to help the establishment make up a £1.2 million funding shortfall. Meryl will be in London filming, and she’s due to arrive in Belfast on August 18, according to media reports. “The importance of the arts to the identity of a society is incalculable. The OMAC has been a clinic for the imaginative good that heals the soul with the healing power of art,” she said in a statement. “This is why OMAC is a cause for celebration and a template for hope.” Streep will be the guest of honor at a gala fundraiser.

“Rendition” has benn announced as one of the gala presentations at the 2007 Toronto Film Festival, which will most likely mark the world premiere of the film. Also, its stars Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal and Meryl Streep have been mentioned to attend the festival. A full schedule will be released in late July, the press release can be read here. The Toronto International Film Festival runs September 06-15.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Amy Adams is in negotiations to star opposite Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Doubt,” John Patrick Shanley’s screen adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning play for Miramax Films and producer Scott Rudin. Adams will play the pivotal role of a young nun in the middle of a tense confrontation in which a Bronx Catholic school principal (Streep) accuses a priest (Hoffman) of pedophilia. Adams received a 2006 best supporting actress Academy Award nomination for her role in Sony Pictures Classics’ “Junebug.”

The Rhode Island Film and TV Office and the Newport International Film Festival have announced a special screening of Focus Features’ Evening during the festival on June 9, 2007 (both closing night screenings of “Evening” have sold out already). “Evening”, which was filmed in Newport, was directed by Lajos Koltai and stars Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Vanessa Redgrave, Patrick Wilson, Hugh Dancy, Natasha Richardson, Mamie Gummer, Eileen Atkins, Meryl Streep, and Glenn Close. Many members of the star-studded cast are expected to attend the screening at the festival, which will be held June 5-10, 2007. Learn more about the Newport Film Festival by visiting their Official Website.

Matt Dillon, Joe Pantaoliano, Lois Smith, Meryl Streep, and Lili Taylor will be among the stars who will perform at Soho Rep’s Spring Gala, to be held at 7pm on Monday, May 14 at 101 Riverviews. The gala will be hosted by Tim Blake Nelson. The actors will perform excerpts from new plays by Will Eno, Nick Flynn, Jenny Schwartz, and Mac Wellman. The evening will also feature the announcement of the first Soho Rep Dorothy Strelsin Playwriting Fellowships. Among the evening’s attendees will be Edward Albee, Olympia Dukakis, Eileen Fulton, and Buck Henry. The gala includes a pre-performance cocktail reception and a post-performance party.

Meryl has received a nomination for the MTV Movie Award as Best Villain for “The Devil Wears Prada”, sharing her category with Bill Nighy (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest), Jack Nicholson (The Departed), Rodrigo Santoro (300) and Tobin Bell (Saw III). “Prada”‘s Emily Blunt has also received two nominations as Best Comedic Performance and Best Breakthrough Role. The winners will be voted by the fans, so you can visit their website here to have your vote casted. The MTV Movie Awards will be handed out on June 03, 2007.

Yet another stage award nomination for Meryl’s performance in “Mother Courage”. This time she has received as Outstanding Actress in a Play Nomination for the Drama Desk Award. A list with all nominees can be found at their official website. Thanks to Frank for the heads-up.

Meryl Streep’s performance in “Mother Courage” has earned her a nomination for the Drama League’s Performance Award. The award will be handed out on May 11, 2007. A list with all nominees can be found here.

Article courtesy The Times Online: Two Hollywood productions face being shelved indefinitely because their stories so grimly echo last week’s massacre on a university campus. Distributors are refusing to touch the films Dark Matter, starring Meryl Streep, which is about an alienated Asian student who shoots fellow students and professors, or The Killer Within, about an American student who goes on a similar rampage. They are wary of taking on films which bear striking parallels to the case of Cho Seung Hui, the Asian student who this month killed 32 students and professors at the Virginia Tech campus before turning his gun on himself in the worst single gun massacre in modern American history. One British distributor, who declined to be named, said: “These films are too close to the knuckle.” Dark Matter, in which Streep plays a university patron who tries to befriend the troubled student, took its inspiration from a 1991 tragedy in which a Chinese physics student opened fire in two buildings on the University of Iowa campus. He killed 6 people including a student and professors. Read the full article here.