Meryl Streep and Barbara Cook Among 2011 Kennedy Center Honorees

 Oscar winner Meryl Streep and Tony winner Barbara Cook will receive the 2011 Kennedy Center Honors at the 34th annual ceremony on December 4. The celebration is set to air on CBS on December 27 with Neil Diamond, Yo-Yo Ma and saxophonist Sonny Rollins also among the honorees.

Streep received Academy Awards for Kramer vs. Kramer and Sophie's Choice as well as additional nominations for Julia and Julia, Doubt, The Devil Wears Prada, Adaptation, Music of the Heart, One True Thing, The Bridges of Madison County, Postcards From the Edge, A Cry in the Dark, Ironweed, Silkwood, Out of Africa, The French Lieutenant's Woman and The Deer Hunter. She starred in the film adaptations of Mamma Mia!, Dancing at Lughnasa and Angels in America (for which she won an Emmy).  For her stage work, Streep earned a Tony Award nomination for A Memory of Two Mondays/27 Wagons Full of Cotton. She has also appeared on Broadway in Happy End, The Cherry Orchard, Secret Service and Trelawney of the "Wells." Her off-Broadway work includes Mother Courage and Her Children, The Seagull, Alice in Concert, The Taming of the Shrew, Measure by Measure, Taken in Marriage and Henry V.

Cook earned a Tony Award in 1958 for originating the role of Marianne Paroo in The Music Man. She received an additional nomination in 2010 for Sondheim on Sondheim. Her other Broadway credits include Flahooley, Oklahoma, Candide, Carousel, Plain and Fancy, The Gay Life, She Loves Me, Any Wednesday, Something More!, Little Murders, The Glass Harp, Enemies, Something  Good, Mostly Sondheim and Barbara Cook's Broadway. Cook continues to tour extensively with her cabaret act.

Diamond appeared on Broadway for the 1972 concert engagement, Neil Diamond: One Man Show. His songs have also appeared in the musicals Dancin' and Fosse.

The Kennedy Center Honors medallions will be presented on December 3, the night before the gala, at a State Department dinner hosted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will celebrate the Honorees and members of the Artists Committee who nominate them, along with the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, at the White House prior to the gala performance.