The Omnivores is a theater collective started by five playwrights cooking up new shows in scrappy and sustainable ways.
We come from wildly different backgrounds and life experiences. We met as the Hunter College Playwriting MFA class of 2023, and then graduated into a precarious time for theater. Inspired by 13P, we started a collective to produce our own work.
We make plays that are hilarious and deeply moving, raunchy and fiercely political, driven by everyday language and vivid theatricality, exploring quotidian moments and big ideas.
Diana Ly is a Vietnamese-American screenwriter and playwright who tells stories about women and people of color coming into their power, agency and artistry. She grew up in the Philippines, studied Computer Science at Stanford and previously worked at Google. She has been a Baryshnikov Arts Resident (with Charlotte Bydwell) and a member of the Universal Pictures Writers Lab, Orchard Project’s Greenhouse Lab, the WIF|Black List Feature Residency and Project Involve at Film Independent. The Omnivores co-production with The Sống Collective of her play Sex and the Abbey at the Brick was warmly recommended by Helen Shaw in the New Yorker. She completed her MFA in Playwriting at Hunter College and is currently a fellow in Juilliard’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. Favorite rehearsal snack: TJ’s Dark Chocolate Almond Butter Cups.
Lauren Holmes is a playwright and producer from Dedham, Massachusetts. Before theater, she had a whole other career at the UN and in corporate America, which is why she writes about work, class, and families of happenstance. She’s the recipient of the 2024/2025 Princess Grace Award in Playwriting/New Dramatists Residency and a 2025/2026 artist residency at The Cell Theatre. Her play Zeus 4 was nominated for the Venturous Playwriting Fellowship by Shayok Misha Chowdhury in 2025. She adapted Olga Ravn’s award-winning novel The Employees with Jaclyn Biskup for a production at Theaterlab in 2024. Her work has been developed at Theaterlab, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Pace University, and The Brick. She’s working on a play about cryogenics and really wants to write a feel-bad musical about Sacco and Vanzetti, Italian anarchists who were tried in her hometown a century ago. Favorite rehearsal snack: Smartfood popcorn. laurenholm.es
Phillip Christian Smith is a resident member of New Dramatists 2023-2030, Sloan Commission reading 2026, Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow, a Roe Green Commission with Cleveland Playhouse, a Fire This Time Festival Playwright, Fresh Ground Pepper PGPG, a Tennessee Williams Scholar at Sewanee (current staff), Playwrights Realm and Lambda Literary Fellow, Winter Playwrights Retreater, The Outrage: A Queer Writers Residency. Florida Rep PlayLab, Valdez Conference. O’Neill, PlayPenn, Trustus, and BAPF Finalist. Co-Literary Director of Exquisite Corpse Company. Phillip is a founding member and one-fifth of The Omnivores. He teaches acting at Pace University and Hunter College where he has also taught playwriting. MFA Yale School of Drama acting, MFA Hunter College playwriting, BFA UNM. Favorite rehearsal snack: whatever Diana brings from Trader Joe's, especially chocolate covered espresso beans! phillipchristiansmith.com
Ian Robles is a Puerto Rican theatre-maker who writes bold and chaotic plays about colonialism, failure and the resilience of the human spirit. He’s also a sound designer, a DJ and a salesman. 2023-24 Tow Playwright-in-Residence at Teatro Círculo, where his play Lío was produced and later nominated for 6 HOLA Awards. Recipient of the Abniel Marat Award for best playwright at FUERZAfest 2018. His works have also been produced at Teatro LATEA, Teatro Pregones and the Julia de Burgos Performance and Arts Center. Co-producer of the Media Luna Reading Series and member of the LatinX Playwrights Circle. MFA in Playwriting, Hunter College ‘23. Favorite rehearsal snack: “everything bagel” hummus and chips.
Chad Kaydo is a queer playwright from Ashtabula, Ohio, who writes intimately observed plays obsessed with friendship, mortality, and the existential questions hidden in the quotidian. The Omnivores will produce his play I'm Repeating Myself at the Brick February 27 to March 15. A member of the Clubbed Thumb 2024-2025 Early Career Writers’ Group, Chad is developing Where Is Miss Stone? with Clubbed Thumb as a finalist for the 2022 Biennial Commission. Chad’s work has also been supported by Fresh Ground Pepper, HB Studio, Playhouse on Park, the Quickening Room, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and Theater Masters. As Playwright in Residence at the Brick, he produces and hosts Quick + Dirty, a development series at Brick Aux for short works by new collaborators. M.F.A., Hunter College. Favorite rehearsal snack: Goldfish crackers—always a hit. chadkaydo.com