Blues In My Coffee by Ted Lange

Two Black guys are sitting enjoying their coffees at  Starbucks, when  in walk the women of their dreams: Susie a classical musician and a quintessential vanilla blonde and Daphne a teacher at NYU and an intellectual dark roast. Comedy and romance ensue,  but they also taste complex realities as they experience soulful blues and ethnic differences.

Ted Lange, a graduate of London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, has won numerous awards for acting, directing, and writing during his prolific 50-year career. Perhaps best known for his role as Isaac Washington the bartender in television's The Love Boat, Lange's true love is theater. He's earned many stage awards, including the Renaissance Man Theatre Award from the NAACP and the Paul Robeson Award from the American Film Institute.

Lange has written 25 plays including Blues in My Coffee which he will direct during the PNMC festival. It's a relationship comedy/drama about the political issues surrounding Black Lives Matter.

Lange's quest is to weave African American experiences into stories that entertain and educate by using current events as themes. He wrote Four Queens -  No Trump in reponse to a colleague's challenge to write a play for Black actresses over 40. He wrote in his Author's Notes, "I started hearing the voices of women in my life speak ... ethnically centered, bodacious, brazen, and bawdy."

Lange, who wrote The Footnote Historian, specializes in researching little known historical facts and bringing alive lost moments of Black history; for example, George Washington’s Boy, the story of George Washington’s favorite slave, Billy Lee.

Lange's understanding of the transcendent relevance of Shakespeare inspired his play, written in verse, The Cause, My Soul, the Prequel to Othello, which won the NAACP Theatre Best Play of 2017. Lange also wrote, directed, and produced Born a Unicorn, a rock ‘n roll musical depicting the life of Black Shakespearean actor, Ira Aldridge.

Here is some wisdom Lange likes to share:  “The duty of the Artist is to find his muse, then let her rip.”