Growing up
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| 1990 |
Lauren Lemay (I) was born in Busteni, Romania. Her birth name is Ana Taloș. She spent the first ten years of her life under Communist rule in the Carpathian Mountains but her father escaped for America after Communism fell.
Five years later he brought his family to Chicago, Illinois, on Christmas 1994. Lauren finished High School and struggling without a green card, she saved enough to drive to Hollywood.
Driving to Hollywood 1999-2004
.jpg "First photoshoot with Kevin Break 2000") |
| First photoshoot with Kevin Break |
In 1999 she arrived and settled in West Hollywood on Laurel Street. She worked as a bikini model and a background performer in Film and Television. She took acting classes at TVI and Lee Strasberg School.
She learned how to write an acting resume and shot headshots with various photographers.
She met her future husband three weeks after her arrival and were married for five years until his death in 2004.
She also became best friends with photographer Kevin Break who introduced her to the teacher that taught her The Teaching ideas.
Return to Chicago 2004-2006
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| 2006 after husband's death |
After the death of her husband she returned to her family in Illinois and began translating The Teaching material from English to Romanian. She was a regular visitor of a Catholic Convent and began the process of joining the nunnery until another nun said, laughing cunningly, that her life will be convenient because she won't ever have to work for a living. Feeling embarrassed and guilty she decided to buy an abandoned house in the corn fields instead and began fixing it, hoping to live the rest of her life in the country, translating.
She and her family received the green card and American Citizenship. She had disagreements with her parents and she was forced to surrender the old abandoned house idea and instead made plans to return to Los Angeles to translate The Teaching material from her teacher and continue to pursue acting. Leaving the nunnery has been one of the biggest regrets of her life.
Los Angeles 2006-2017
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| Photo by Kevyn Major Howard |
After a few trips and failures to settle back in L.A., she returned permanently in 2006 and continued collecting The Teaching material and working in entertainment. After the death of her teacher she married her best friend, photographer Kevin Break in 2009.
Living in his photo studio The Jesus Wall, Lauren continued translating, building and painting sets, performing in community theatre and began shooting short documentaries.
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| House of Bernarda Alba - Underground Theatre |
In 2012 she became a mother and began attending Los Angeles City College Theatre Academy where she studied acting.
Finding out that the college offered financial aid and the Governor fee waiver made it possible for her to go to school free of charge, she took advantage and began to claim her education.
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| 2016 |
In 2015 she had her second son and finished her training at the Theatre Academy in 2016.
Going to Berkeley 2017-2019
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| Graduation 2017 |
Transferring to Berkeley in 2017, she studied Performance Studies and Comparative Literature, continuing her love of translating the Teaching material and further studying theatre.
She added a third major, Film Studies where she learned to study films.
She reedited and republished two short books. One in Romanian "Învățătura" - first published in 2009 and the other in English "The Teaching" First tape of her teacher's, transcribed with figures.
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| Graduation 2017 |
She later translated the play "The Stronger" from Dutch, Romanian and French to English, aiming to shoot a film based on it She began experimenting shooting her first narrative story on her iphone with her children "Thomas the Train" and began venturing into narrative filmmaking.
Lauren Lemay Productions 2019 - present
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| Soundbooth during Covid lockdown |
Lauren began her production company after the death of her father to Covid-19 in 2020. She built her own sound booth and began narrating stories. She published a narration of Dracula in 2020.
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| Shooting a promo for Dracula, a Documentary |
The Documentary/interview on Dracula called "
Dracula, a Documentary" was finished in 2021. She began shooting short scenes with actors and later wrote, shot, directed and edited her first narrative short "
Oranges and White Chocolate" later that year.
In 2022 she revisited the bridge documentary project that she thought of creating in 2006 "Los Angeles River Bridges" (2022) in which she follows her husband photographer Kevin Break as he talks about and photographs the bridges.
.jpg "First photoshoot with Kevin Break 2000")
