As previously reported by Playbill.com, two-time Tony Award winner Brian Dennehy will star alongside David Strathairn and Maria Tucci in Nelson's new play that chronicles those entangled in Julius Caesar's world of manipulation and power.

Added to the cast are Joe Grifasi (The Boys Next Door, Dinner At Eight) and Gloria Reuben (Stuff Happens, The Vagina Monologues).

The production will begin performances Feb. 19, 2008, with an official opening set for March 11; the limited engagement will run through March 23.

Conversations in Tusculum, press notes state, is described in this manner: "The country you love and the values it represents are being destroyed by a misguided leader. You can continue to live in relative comfort by not involving yourself, or you can take action to save the democracy you love." Nelson's work, which he will also direct, is set outside of Rome in the villas and hillsides of Tusculum.

Dennehy portrays Cicero, with Joe Grifasi as Syrus, Gloria Reuben as Porcia, David Strathairn as Cassius, and Maria Tucci as Servilia. Richard Nelson earned the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for James Joyce's The Dead, a production he also directed. His other works for Broadway include Two Shakespearean Actors, Some Americans Abroad, the book for the musical Chess, as well as adaptations of The Father, Accidental Death of an Anarchist and The Marriage of Figaro.

Tickets for the general public will go on sale Feb. 3; however, Public Theater members can obtain tickets beginning Dec. 7.

For further information visit www.publictheater.org.