Lauren Dooley Sprague has enjoyed a substantive career as a performer, music minister, educator and writer. When she thinks about the impact music has had on her life, the refrain “put a song in your heart, a little love in your soul sing a song of freedom it will help to ease your load, yeah walkin’ along, singin’ a song, smilin’ as you go” comes to mind. This refrain, written by her father Stephen Dooley (stage name Fenton Burke), served as the soundtrack for Lauren’s early childhood memories. The simplicity of this lyric resonated with her as a child. Even more, it has helped to form the foundation on which she has grown and developed as a person.

Growing up on the Connecticut shore, Ms. Sprague was active in community theater, performed in concerts and plays at school, was a featured soloist with a select youth choir and enjoyed writing songs and plays - many of which she performed with her friends in the backyard. At age 14, Lauren was invited to attend the Educational Center for the Arts, an Arts Magnet program in New Haven, CT. At ECA she took classes in musicianship, music theory, classical and jazz performance, composition and theater.

A graduate of Boston University College of Fine arts, Ms. Sprague earned a B. Mus., summa cum laude with a concentration in Vocal Performance. She was inducted into the Pi Kappa Lambda National Music Honor Society (the music equivalent of Phi Beta Kappa) and the Golden Key National Honor Society. While at B.U. Lauren was one of only four sopranos invited to join the Undergraduate Opera Company and had the privilege of performing at the Huntington Theater in Boston. Lauren also worked two jobs while maintaining an exceptional GPA that secured her place on the Dean’s list, and she was a member of the select Chamber Chorus, the Symphonic Chorus and the Baroque Chamber Music Ensemble.

Following graduation Lauren became a featured soloist with The Spectrum Singers of Cambridge, MA. Through connections she made singing with Spectrum, Lauren accepted a job serving as a cantor at Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Concord, MA. Lauren served the Catholic community in Concord for 23 years, during which time she also taught religious education, directed the children’s choir, the Christmas Pageant and the VBS program for which she collaborated to write original curricula and music.

Lauren has taught music and theater to people of all ages throughout Massachusetts for the last two decades. Previously she taught with Music Together Around the Towns, served as the Drama Coach at Tewksbury High School, taught general music for the Haverhill Public Schools, and taught private voice lessons at both the Bradford School of Music and the Middlesex School in Concord. Additionally, she taught at the Concord Academy Summer Camp and ran her own youth theater company in Concord for 8 summers. Presently Lauren teaches music at the Temple Preschool in Andover and serves as a cantor for the Catholic Community at Phillips Academy, Andover.

While the majority of Lauren’s writing has been for the young people she has taught and directed, Lauren is thrilled to have had the opportunity to collaborate with singer-songwriter Amy Gilvary. The two women have recently completed a musical entitled Parts of Me, which premiered in Topsfield, MA in March of 2023. Through the lens of the Internal Family Systems model of psychotherapy, this original musical explores one woman’s inherited and childhood trauma. To read an excerpt of the script, listen to some of the songs or view a video of the premiere, visit the media page.

Praised for her dynamic stage presence and vibrant vocal tone, Ms. Sprague has appeared with the Savoyard Light Opera Company, the Lowell Opera Company, the Palace Theater of Manchester NH, Longwood Opera, Opera New Hampshire, The Footlight Club, The Kairos Vocal Ensemble, Fiddlehead Theater Company, Theater 1, Pocket Full of Tales, Imaginary Beasts Theater Company, Acting Out!, JM Productions, and Spotlight Playhouse. In 2006 she was nominated for Best Actress in a Musical by the Eastern Massachusetts Community Theater Association.  

A sought after soprano soloist, Lauren was the soloist in the Concord Summer Sing performance of The Mozart Requiem and the WCUC series performances of Schubert's Mass in G, Faure's REQUIEM and Haydn's Kleine Orgelmesse. Favorite roles include Josephine in H.M.S. Pinafore, Adina in Donizetti's Elixir of Love, Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance, Adele in Strauss' Die Fledermaus, Yum Yum in The Hot Mikado, Marian in The Music Man and most importantly wife to her amazing husband and mommy to her beautiful children.