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Streep portrays NI rights activist

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Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep will play the role of NI human rights activist Inez McCormack in a special reading of a documentary play in New York.
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SEVEN captures the work and remarkable lives of a group of women leaders around the world.

"It is very humbling to have your life story represented in this way and a privilege to have an Oscar winning actress and strong female character like Meryl Streep involved in the dramatisation", Belfast-born McCormack said.

Inez McCormack became active in the civil rights movement in the late 60s.

In 1998, she led a successful campaign for equality and human rights provisions to be included in the Good Friday Agreement. She was the first woman President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

"I have had the privilege of spending a lifetime at the service of warm strong women, who challenged injustice not just for themselves but for the people and communities they cared for and whose only affirmation has been that of their own conscience", she said.

The play was developed several years ago by international women's NGO Vital Voices Global Partnership, which was co-founded by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to empower women leaders around the world.

Seven award-winning playwrights were commissioned to tell the stories of Inez and six other women who brought major changes in Northern Ireland, Russia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Guatemala, and Cambodia.

Their play is being staged on the opening night of a three-day summit taking place at the Hudson Theatre in New York on 12-14 March.

The conference is organised by the American news website, The Daily Beast, which was founded by former Vanity Fair Editor Tina Brown.

It will be attended by over 1000 women pioneers in government, media, social activism, business and the arts, including Queen Rania of Jordan, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde.

Joining Meryl Streep at the ensemble reading on the Broadway stage will be Shohreh Aghdashloo (The House of Sand and Fog), Tony-nominated Julyana Soelistyo (Golden Child), Lauren Vélez (Dexter), and Archie Panjabi (The Good Wife).

They portray Mukhtar Mai from Pakistan, Annabella De Leon from Guatemala, Mu Sochua from Cambodia, Farida Azizi from Afghanistan, Hafsat Abiola from Nigeria and Marina Pisklakova-Parker from Russia.

© UTV News

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