Simon’s play about love, mortality and literary legacy involves two older lovers and their young assistants. The play begins previews at MTC’s Stage I at City Center Nov. 20, opening Dec. 9. Moore, known for TV’s “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and Hollywood’s “Ordinary People,” appeared on Broadway in Sweet Sue and Whose Life Is It Anyway? Rose’s Dilemmma will mark her Off-Broadway debut.

The play was seen in a different form at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles in early 2003, under the title Rose and Walsh, with Jane Alexander and Len Cariou. David Aaron Baker is the only cast holdover from that earlier run. Paula Cale is also in the four-actor MTC company, under the direction of MTC artistic director Lynne Meadow. David Esbjornson helmed in California.

This is Simon’s 33rd play. The work was orginally said to be inspired by the relationship between Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett.

Cullum is the Tony Award-winning actor known for Shenandoah, On the Twentieth Century, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever and, in the past two years, Urinetown, the Musical. Before MTC, he’ll play the new musical, Wilder, at Off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons Oct. 14-Nov. 9.

MTC bills Rose’s Dilemma this way: “In Hamptons beach house, celebrated writer Rose Stein is at a crossroads. She’s running out of money and needs to write ‘the next big thing,’ fast. When her former lover, literary lion Walsh McLaren, has the brainstorm that could make her a fortune, she leaps at the chance. How she’ll pull it off is just the first of many mysteries in this most intriguing play.”