Patrick Swanson will direct the William Shakespeare classic featuring Epstein as the fallen monarch with feuding daughters. Produced in collaboration with Boston University, the work opens Sept. 29 for a run through Oct. 23 in Studio 102 at B.U. ASP company members Paula Langton and Jennie Israel as Goneril and Regan, Benjamin Evett and Doug Lockwood as the villainous Edmund and maligned Edgar, and Ken Cheeseman as Lear's Fool will join Epstein in the cast. Further casting is to be announced.

Epstein recently performed Off-Broadway as Nagg in Endgame at the Irish Repertory Theater, and as Morrie in Tuesdays With Morrie. The actor made his New York debut in 1956 and has trod the Broadway and Off-Broadway boards in such memorable turns as the Fool to Orson Welles’ King Lear, in the American premieres of Waiting For Godot (as Lucky - which he reprised for the 1961 television premiere opposite Zero Mostel and Burgess Meredith) and Endgame (as Clov). He also appeared in the world premiere of Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaikin's When The World Was Green, No Strings with Diahann Carroll and Richard Kiley, The Madwoman of Chaillot, The Threepenny Opera (opposite Sting), The Skin of Our Teeth (with Anne Bancroft and Estelle Parsons) and his Obie Award-winning turn in Dynamite Tonight!

The new company's second season will continue with the Bard's Twelfth Night (Dec. 15-Jan. 8) directed by Robert Walsh at the Cambridge Multi-Cultural Center and All’s Well That Ends Well (April 6-30) directed by ASP artistic director Benjamin Evett at the Cambridge Family YMCA Theater in Central Square.

Subscriptions to the new ASP season are now on sale. For information, visit www.actorsshakespeareproject.org.