Rebecca Taichman directs the work which will begin previews Dec. 12 towards an officially open Jan. 11, 2007, for a run slated through Feb. 4, 2007.

Rebeck — who saw her The Water's Edge run at Second Stage last season — will return with her new work which follows an out-of-work New York actor who has an affair with a fresh faced Ohioan ingenue and finds himself more morally and spiritually lost than he was before. Heaton will play a morning television news program producer.

Heaton is widely recognized for her two-time Emmy-winning turn as the wife Debra Barone on CBS' concluded series "Everybody Loves Raymond." The actress has also been seen in TNT's "The Engagement Ring," ABC's "The Path to 9/11" and co-starring with Jeff Daniels in a TNT remake of Neil Simon's "The Goodbye Girl." She began her career on the New York stage and made her Broadway debut in Don't Get God Started.

Taichman — who is set to stage Rebeck's Mauritis at Boston's Huntington Theatre Company — is an associate artistic director at Washington, D.C.'s Woolly Mammoth Theater. She has previously staged Green Violin (her co-creation) starring Raul Esparza at Philadelphia's Prince Music Theater, Clean House (Woolly Mammoth) and is also slated to direct her new play Dead Man's Cell Phone for the company.

Tickets to The Scene at Second Stage, 307 West 43rd Street (just off Eighth Ave.), are available by calling (212) 246-4422 or (800) 766-6048. For more information, go to www.SecondStageTheatre.com.