Born and raised just outside New York City, Michael Lange first developed a taste for drama at school, where he served as both an actor and director in a number of productions. Although pressured by his parents to become a doctor, he went on to study theatre at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.. After college, he started his own regional theatre in Teaneck, New Jersey, and was also active in a number of musical groups. He produced and directed several plays at the theatre before moving onto advertising. He then worked at an advertising company, Cunningham & Walsh, for five years as a producer, before he moved to Creamer Advertising in New York for which he served as head of television and radio production. In 1980, he quit after eight years in the advertising business and moved to California aspiring to become a film and television director.
Lange's first job was on The Fall Guy in 1981 as a post production assistant and after a year he was promoted to second unit director, in which role he shot almost thirty episodes (second unit only) for the show. He then moved on to Riptide and later, in his self-described leap to "quality television", Life Goes On in 1993. Since then, he has garnered directorial credits from two hundred television episodes, including amongst many others The O.C., Beverly Hills, 90210, The Larry Sanders Show, Northern Exposure, Eureka, The Pretender, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X-Files, and "Eli Stone" Brothers & Sisters, One Tree Hill, Dirty Sexy Money, Dawson's Creek, Point Pleasant, Miss Match, Everwood, Diagnosis: Murder, Jake and the Fatman and Greek. He has directed one feature film, Intern, and the Disney Channel television movie Jumping Ship.
Having been in a number of bands growing up, Lange's other business is in music. He and his colleague and room mate from college days, Peter Gorin, run Silly Music Corporation, a record company that produces song parodies of Broadway musicals with a Jewish spin. Their music arranger/composer is Michael's High School friend, Marc Ellis.
Lange is Jewish, a background that has given him inspiration for Kosher Christmas Carols, a collection of musical parodies written by Peter Gorin and himself, and also landed him a minor role in an episode of The O.C. in which he played a rabbi.
