The Omnivores are five playwrights who develop and produce our own work, aiming to combine new and diverse ideas, artists, and audiences.
We come from wildly different backgrounds, met in the Hunter College playwriting MFA program, and—inspired by the collective 13P—formed our own collective.
We make plays with and for people as diverse as our own individual life experiences.
Our work is distinctive and playwright-driven, propelled by everyday language and vivid theatricality, exploring both intimate moments and big ideas.
The Omnivores are Diana Ly, Lauren Holmes, Phillip Christian Smith, Ian Robles, and Chad Kaydo.
Meet the Omnivores
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, this year’s winner of the Kleban Prize for most promising librettist, holder of a Sloan Commission, 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. Phillip is a founding member and 1/5th of The Omnivores. He teaches playwriting at Medgar Evers College, 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 Ian Robles is a Puerto Rican theatre-maker who writes bold and chaotic plays about colonialism, failure and the resilience of the human spirit. I F*cking Hate LUMA was part of LA SALA’s 2026 Spring Readings at Latinx Playwrights Circle. Lío was produced at Teatro Círculo, directed by Mario Colón. Co-founder and producer of the Media Luna x First Call Reading Series. ‘24 Tow Fellow at Teatro Círculo. His works have also been produced at Pregones Theatre, FuerzaFest, and Teatro LATEA. Recipient of the Abniel Marat Award. Member of the Latinx Playwrights Circle and La Bicicleta Inc. He’s also a DJ and a salesman. MFA in Playwriting, Hunter College ’23. Rehearsal snack: a banana.
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. Recently: I'm Repeating Myself at the Brick, directed by Carsen Joenk, produced by The Omnivores and RHONDA. Workshops of Where Is Miss Stone? with Clubbed Thumb and #’s at the 2025 Great Plains Theatre Commons New Play Festival. Chad was in the Clubbed Thumb 2024-2025 Early Career Writers’ Group, and his work has 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
Support Our Work
We have produced two shows—Diana Ly’s Sex and the Abbey in 2024, and Chad Kaydo’s I’m Repeating Myself in 2025—and we have some exciting things in the works.
But we can’t do it without financial support.
THE OMNIVORES are fiscally sponsored by Producer Hub, so your donations are tax deductible, and eligible for corporate matching programs.
Our work is also supported by the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation.
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