Jen Diamond

Jen Diamond

Jen Diamond is a Brooklyn-based playwright, screenwriter, and very chill girl. She writes spooky, funny plays about friendship, girlhood, and the performance of self.

Some of her plays include Pageant Play (Finalist, National Playwrights Conference 2024; Roundtable Reading Series 2023, Hunter College), The Bad Guy (Appalachian Festival of Plays & Playwrights 2024, The Barter Theatre), Porn: A...
Jen Diamond is a Brooklyn-based playwright, screenwriter, and very chill girl. She writes spooky, funny plays about friendship, girlhood, and the performance of self.

Some of her plays include Pageant Play (Finalist, National Playwrights Conference 2024; Roundtable Reading Series 2023, Hunter College), The Bad Guy (Appalachian Festival of Plays & Playwrights 2024, The Barter Theatre), Porn: A Love Story (Honorable Mention, Neukom Institute Literary Arts Awards 2023; Cohesion Theatre Company), The Alibi Play (Baltimore Theatre Project; Recipient, Maryland State Arts Council Creativity Grant), and Here We Are (Kennedy Center/Page-to-Stage; Interrobang Theatre).

She has been a Finalist for SPACE on Ryder Farm’s Come to the Table Residency and The Bechdel Project’s ROO Residency (2024), a Semi-Finalist for the Terrence McNally New Works Incubator (2024), a Wright-Right-Now Playwright at Baltimore Center Stage, and a Finalist for the City Theatre National Award (2019).

Other work has been presented or developed at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, Dixon Place, City Theatre Miami, American Lives Theatre, The Tank, and others. When she’s not writing for the theatre, she makes up one-half of the indie-comedy duo OLGA. In 2021, OLGA’s original comedy pilot, A Whole Production, was the winner of the Austin Film Festival’s Warner Bros. Entertainment Pilot Award.

She received a B.A. in Writing Seminars from Johns Hopkins University and is currently working towards her MFA in Playwriting at Hunter College (class of 2024).

Plays

  • Pageant Play by Jen Diamond
    Recommendations: 4
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    Cast: 
    6
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy
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    Keyword: legacy, cannibalism + 7 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy
    Keyword: legacy, cannibalism, beauty pageant, death, History, teenage girl coming-of-age, competition, Mental Health, mother daughter relationships
    Each year, Derby, Nevada (population 3,529) hosts the Derby Dolls Pageant to commemorate the sacrifices the town's foremothers made when they resorted to cannibalism in order to survive a snowstorm. In this laugh out loud, break your heart comedy about teetering on the brink of womanhood, four pageant girls compete to win the Derby Dolls crown, only to discover that there are more ways to be a woman than they ever realized.
  • Someone Buried Polynices by Jen Diamond
    Cast: 
    5
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    Genre: adaptation, comedy + 1 more
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    Keyword: pyrrhic dance, friendship + 3 more
    Genre: adaptation, comedy, drama
    Keyword: pyrrhic dance, friendship, grief, adaptation, comedy
    The war in Thebes is over and death and destruction abound. Hoplite Sethos has big dreams for the future but his friend Icky, grieving the loss of his mentor and lover, vows never to dance again, which is really harshing the vibe. And now, on top of everything else, the two friends have to figure out who the heck buried the traitor Polynices?!? An inventive, exuberant adaptation of Antigone, this comedy weighs...
    The war in Thebes is over and death and destruction abound. Hoplite Sethos has big dreams for the future but his friend Icky, grieving the loss of his mentor and lover, vows never to dance again, which is really harshing the vibe. And now, on top of everything else, the two friends have to figure out who the heck buried the traitor Polynices?!? An inventive, exuberant adaptation of Antigone, this comedy weighs the everyday joys against the heartbreaking mysteries of the universe.
  • The Bad Guy by Jen Diamond
    Cast: 
    5
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    Genre: adaptation, dark comedy + 3 more
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    Keyword: horror, family + 5 more
    Genre: adaptation, dark comedy, horror, mystery/thriller, tragedy
    Keyword: horror, family, Inheritance, transformation, adaptation, cult, folk horror
    When Finn and Deirdre inherit Finn's childhood home they move in, hoping to repair their marriage and get a fresh start on life. But the woods are far deeper and darker than Finn remembers and his half-sister has become a stranger. This modern, folk-horror adaptation of The Bacchae is about all the ways we are capable of transforming ourselves and those we love.
  • Porn: A Love Story by Jen Diamond
    Cast: 
    5
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 2 more
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    Keyword: magical realism, internet + 6 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, experimental
    Keyword: magical realism, internet, millennials, Sex, death, coming of age, technology, social media
    After years of scrubbing the internet clean of humanity’s most vile fantasies, a nihilistic content moderator must convince herself there’s still enough optimism and good in her self to deserve the love of her new coworker.
  • The Morbs by Jen Diamond
    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 3 more
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    Keyword: thriller, horror + 6 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, mystery/thriller, science fiction
    Keyword: thriller, horror, comedy, female friendship, transformation, sororities, aging, The Cranberries
    Three best best BEST friends from college get stuck in a cabin during an outbreak of a terrifying illness known as The Morbs. Good thing they know each other better than anyone... Right? A comedy-thriller about friendship, cold soup, and the people we become.
  • Here We Are by Jen Diamond
    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: drama, experimental + 1 more
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    Keyword: airplane, pilot + 3 more
    Genre: drama, experimental, fantasy
    Keyword: airplane, pilot, magical realism, death, feminism
    Amelia was the first female pilot to fly around the world. She's also dead. When she wakes up, she finds herself in the Underworld, forced by Death to journey back in her memories to reconstruct her life and the men who tried to define her legacy.
  • The Alibi Play by Jen Diamond
    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: comedy, experimental
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    Keyword: female friendship, women in comedy + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, experimental
    Keyword: female friendship, women in comedy, Stand-up comic, stand-up, feminism
    Comedy duo OLGA is super psyched to perform for you a brand new night of stand up comedy!!!

    Well, they would be psyched – except Jen’s boyfriend just broke up with her in a frozen yogurt shop. And Pam is unemployed and unable to buy a Bitcoin. And something really, really bad happened just a few hours ago and it might just change both of their lives forever.

    Half stand up, half...
    Comedy duo OLGA is super psyched to perform for you a brand new night of stand up comedy!!!

    Well, they would be psyched – except Jen’s boyfriend just broke up with her in a frozen yogurt shop. And Pam is unemployed and unable to buy a Bitcoin. And something really, really bad happened just a few hours ago and it might just change both of their lives forever.

    Half stand up, half theatre, The Alibi Play is a comedy that kaleidoscopes reality, fantasy, and friendship to figure out what it means to be a truly Good Person.
  • Pretty Like Normal by Jen Diamond
    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: comedy, drama
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    Keyword: teenagers, Sex + 2 more
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: teenagers, Sex, coming of age, growing up
    Melissa and Laura are watching porn for the first time. Melissa's into it. Laura is not. Pizza Crust the dog likes to sleep.

    This joyful love letter to pubescent female friendship – in all of its awkwardness, strangeness, and excitingness – is told through the tilting, lilting 'likes' and 'ums' of teenagers' language as the girls wonder about their present day and...
    Melissa and Laura are watching porn for the first time. Melissa's into it. Laura is not. Pizza Crust the dog likes to sleep.

    This joyful love letter to pubescent female friendship – in all of its awkwardness, strangeness, and excitingness – is told through the tilting, lilting 'likes' and 'ums' of teenagers' language as the girls wonder about their present day and prophesize about their futures.
  • This Is How Ghosts Speak by Jen Diamond
    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 2 more
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    Keyword: ghosts, magic + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama, immersive
    Keyword: ghosts, magic, dark
    The power is out, and Theatre33 is definitely haunted. Presented in black out with actors using flashlights, THIS IS HOW GHOSTS SPEAK is a ghost story, following three theatre workers navigating the darkness and stumbling into moments of vulnerability and literal magic.