Ted Lange Shakes His Spear with Four Geniuses in Tavern Debate

by Jared Randolph

Okay, stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a scientist, an earl, and a spy walk into a tavern. What do they have in common? They are writers. They also have secrets. Secrets require another, a beard, a frontman, to publicly claim authorship of their work so it can safely circulate in Elizabethan England. Enter William Shakespeare.

Ted Lange’s “Shakespeare Over My Shoulder,” now playing at the African-American Shakespeare Company, is part historical fantasia, part backstage satire, and part spirited defense of the enduring Shakespeare authorship debate.

Written during the COVID shutdown, the play draws subtle parallels between the plague closures that repeatedly shuttered Elizabethan theaters and the fragility of live performance in our own era, reminding audiences that even in moments of crisis, “the play’s the thing.”

Lange, best known to audiences for his television work, is an accomplished playwright and director with more than 25 plays to his name. The framework of a tavern gathers four towering figures of Elizabethan lore: William Shakespeare, Edward de Vere (the 17th Earl of Oxford), Christopher Marlowe, and Francis Bacon. They debate authorship, class, public identity, and the future of theater itself, as the English Renaissance begins to ignite.

As Shakespeare, Nic Moore brings swaggering physicality and comic vitality, portraying him less as untouchable literary icon and more as an ambitious actor navigating forces far larger than himself. This energetic performance serves as an effective counterweight to Mychael Anthony Brown’s wounded and aristocratic Oxford, a man carrying equal measure of intellect, heartbreak, and bitterness.

Ronnie Rice gives Marlowe a combustible mix of charisma and ego, while Gary Moore provides a steadier strategic presence as Bacon, philosopher and quiet observer of the room’s shifting alliances.

Lange also knowingly plays with language and perception. The repeated phrase “the pot calling the kettle black” carries additional weight when three principal actors are BIPOC performers playing historically white roles. The effect is subtle but provocative, reinforcing our fascination with ownership, visibility, and who history allows to speak.

The script succeeds most when it allows these men to wrestle openly with the tension between public identity and private ambition. Lange’s experience in the entertainment industry echoes through the dialogue, particularly in the way Bacon and Oxford warn Shakespeare about the dangers of fame, branding, and artistic ownership.

Lange clearly has a passion for the historical record, though the script occasionally burdens scenes introducing characters from Elizabeth’s court that will never appear onstage. Those allegiances may prove difficult for contemporary audiences to track as names accumulate faster than their dramatic impact.

Still, fans of theater history, literary mysteries, or spirited backstage debates will find plenty to enjoy. Like the best tavern conversations, “Shakespeare Over My Shoulder” ends not with certainty, but with questions, fitting for a mystery built on men who were “such stuff as dreams are made on.”

 

“Shakespeare Over My Shoulder” –written & directed by Ted Lange, set design by Ely McIntire, costumes by Alia Davis Brown, lighting by Kevin Myrick, sound by Alexis Brooks. at African-American Shakespeare Company, 533 Sutter St., San Francisco.

Info: african-americanshakes.org – to June 7, 2026.

Cast: Mychael Anthony Brown, Gary Moore, Nic Moore, Ronnie Rice, and Georgina Spelvin.

Banner photo: Gary Moore, Ronnie Rice, and Mychael Anthony Brown. Photos: Joseph Giammarco