Lauren Lopez is American singer, dancer and actress. She is one of the founders of the popular “TeamKids” group, who started with the “A Very Potter Musical” and Draco Malfroy performed by Lopez. Lauren is a choreographer and theatre audition coach.
Early life, education, family
Lauren Elizabeth Lopez was born on 8 March 1986, in Royal Oak, Michigan US; she has a younger brother to whom she is very close. As children, they were playing a game called “hamming”, which actually means buying ham slices, throw them at trees and windows to see if the slices will stick. She was raised by a Jewish mother and a Mexican father. As a child she liked to dance, and at the age of three began competitive dancing.
During high school her mother insisted she try acting, so she was part of school musicals and plays. The turning point in her future education was the play “Medea” with Fiona Shaw, when Lauren decided what her future profession would be.
After high school she continued her education at the University of Michigan, from where she graduated with honors in theatre arts. Later Lauren attended classes for improvisational theatre in Chicago at iO and The Second City, and at Groundlings in Los Angeles, California. She has also resided in New York and Chicago, but currently lives in Los Angeles.
Career
Team StarKids
Her talent was noticed by students and professors, so during studies she and a few of her fellow students founded the online musical theatre company “Team Starkid”, and became successful performers. Lauren got close to Darren Criss, who played in the musical show “Glee”. The two of them wrote many music albums, plays and internet videos together under Starkids production.
They started to work together thanks to the theatre organization that was run by the students in the University, called Basement arts. Lauren played Frodo in the first play that came off as a result of this collaboration, worked according to “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit”.
Her second performance was as Tanya Freemont in the YouTube online series “Little White Lie” with Darren Criss. The next “A Very Potter Musical” happened in Lauren’s senior year in 2009, and was a comic adaptation of the “Harry Potter” series from J.K.Rowling. All four performances at the University were sold out, with Laura playing Draco Malfoy. The video of the play was posted on YouTube and it gained popularity. Entertainment Weekly put the musical in the list of “10 Best Viral Videos of 2009”.
Lauren, Darren, Matt and Nick Lang and Brian Holden founded the group,and actually worked on ten original musicals and had two national tours, “The Space Tour” in 2011 and “Apocalyptour” in 2012.
They also had partnerships with iO Chicago and The Second City, which are improvisational theatres and training centers based in Chicago. This form of theatre is without written script, which means that the performers spontaneously create the dialog. Since its beginning on YouTube in 2009, Team StarKids had reached over 270 million views and over 630,000 subscribers all over the world. The group travelled around the US, as well as in Ireland, Germany and London.
TV Appearance
Lauren Lopez appeared in the movies “Treasures of the Past” and “Passenger Seats” in 2009. In 2016 she was in the cast for the TV miniseries “Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party”.
In 2018 “Sona” were premiered, a science fiction TV series, and she also appeared in the TV series “Stellar People” as her recent project. “The Wayward Guide for the Untrained Eye” is expected later in 2020, new series that Lauren has already finished filming.
Stage
Besides her film and TV roles, Lauren is very active in the theatre. In 2018 she played Emma in Team StarKids comedy musical “The Guy Who Didn’t Like Misicals” at the Matrix Theatre in LA. She did the choreography for this musical. The next year she performed with Tin Can Bros Comedy in the show “We Didn’t Mean to Kill Our Guests”.
For the 10th anniversary of Team StarKids, the group reunited and performed “Black Friday” at the ACE Theatre in L.A. In 2020 she will continue her performance with Tin Can Bros Comedy in “We Didn’t Mean to Kill Our Guests 2: No One’s Dying This Time!” Lauren also worked the choreography for Tin Can Bros’s “Spies are Forever”. Lauren Lopez continues as a choreographer and theater audition coach, and also does monologue coaching.
Commercials
During her professional career, Lauren was part of many commercials and campaigns, among others for Kmart, Toys R Us, Intel, Bank of America and Amtrak.
Posted by Lauren Lopez on Thursday, March 3, 2011
Personal Life
Lauren keeps her personal life private. There were rumors that she was dating her StarKids companion, Joey Richter, but they were never confirmed. In 2017 Lauren was much more open with her followers, and on Instagram shared that since 20 years of age, she has beendealing with clinical depression.
Appearance
Lauren Lopez is 5’ (1.52m) tall. She has long brown hair and brown eyes.
Interesting facts
- Lauren likes to bake, and published the cook book “These Treats Don’t Suck:A Gluten Free Cookbook” in 2013. The book has a list of original recipes made by Lauren.
- She has a dog, a Chihuahua named Diane that was adopted in 2016.
- Lauren is an animal rights activist. She volunteers in “A Purposeful Rescue” in Los Angeles, and insists on people adopting animals from rescue shelters.
- At the beginning of her career, her video singing “I Don’t Really Wanna Do the Work Today” from Firebringer went viral.
- Lauren likes doing puzzles.
- She has been a Harry Potter fan since 6th Her favorite book is “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” from J.K Rowling.
- She is a fan of the reality TV series “The Real Housewives”.
- Lauren’s favorite quote from “A Very Potter Musical” is “Are you kids ready to fight a dragon?! Of course not, you’re just children, what the hell am I thinking?!”