Clay Meredith Greene (March 12, 1850 – September 5, 1933) was an American screenwriter, theatre critic and journalist, but he was chiefly known as a dramatist.

[7] With playwright Steele Mackaye, Greene co-founded the American Dramatic Author's Society in 1878, the first U.S. organization dedicated to protecting the rights of dramatists.

[4] His parents sent Clay to SCU in 1867, encouraging him pursue a career in medicine or law, but his university education only increased his interest in theatre.

[9] While working as a stock broker and journalist, he continued to write plays and act, including performing the role of Dick Deadeye in the comic opera H.M.S.

[18] In 1878 Greene and playwright Steele Mackaye co-founded the American Dramatic Author's Society, the first organization in the United States created to protect the rights of dramatists.

[22] That same year he wrote the four-act play The Cut Glove for the comic duo P. F. Baker and T. J. Farron, which they toured in the southern United States.

[23][24] With A. G. Thompson, Greene co-wrote the play Freaks of Fortune, which premiered at the Grand Opera House in San Francisco in 1877.

[25] Williamson and his company performed other plays by Greene at The Boston Theatre in 1878, including Struck Oil and The Chinese Question.

[26] Actress Kate Mayhew[20] owned the rights to an 1873 play by Richard H. Cox based on the popular story "The Work on Red Mountain" by Bret Harte, which had been serialized from 1860 to 1863.

[20] Greene's version, titled M'liss, premiered in 1877, at the New Market Theater in Old Town Historic District of Portland, Oregon,[28] and a subsequent run immediately followed at the California Theatre in San Francisco.

[32] With Slauson Thompson, Greene co-authored the four act farce Sharps and Flats as a starring vehicle for the comedy duo of Robson and Crane.

[33] A send-up of the speculative New York stock market and its buyers during the Gilded Age,[34] it premiered at the Standard Theatre on Broadway in 1880.

[33] Greene and Thompson collaborated on a second play, Chispa, which was produced by David Belasco at the Baldwin Theater in San Francisco in 1881.

[16] Greene was hired to write a play for the Grand Opera House in Toronto on the life and death of Canadian politician and resistance movement leader Louis Riel, who had just been hanged on November 16, 1885.

Greene rapidly produced the play, Louis Riel, or, The Northwest Rebellion, and it premiered in Toronto with a cast of New York actors on New Year's Day 1886.

[16] The same year his play The Golden Giant was produced by Charles Frohman at Broadway's Fifth Avenue Theatre in a production starring McKee Rankin and his wife Kitty Blanchard.

[38] 1887 was highly productive for Greene, beginning with the musical play Hans the Boatman, which he created for the Theatre Royal, Sheffield, in England, to start the Swiss-born English actor Charles Arnold (1854–1905), who portrayed the title character.

[39] The most successful musical of Greene's career,[16] it was a tremendous hit for Arnold, who toured the piece for three years across Australia, Asia, and the United States.

[41] That same year he co-authored the play Pawn Ticket 210 with Belasco for Lotta Crabtree; it premiered at McVicker's Theater in Chicago.

[42] In 1888 Greene's play adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin premiered at the Hollis Street Theatre in Boston.

[43] He served as the lyricist of the musical Blue Beard, Jr., composed by Fred J. Eustis, Richard Maddern, and John Joseph Braham Sr.[44] It premiered at the Grand Opera House, Chicago, in 1889,[45] and then toured nationally,[46] including a stop on Broadway at Niblo's Garden in 1890.

[47] Greene wrote the book of the musical Peti, the Vagabond, which starred Hubert Wilke in the title role and premiered at the California Theatre in San Francisco in 1890.

[48] He co-authored the 1892 play The New South with actor Joseph R. Grismer, about racial animus in the Southern United States after the American Civil War.

The story followed a white United States Army captain sent by the U.S. government to arrest individuals illegally making and selling moonshine.

[49] Greene collaborated with J. Cheever Goodwin on the book of the musical Africa, which premiered in San Francisco in June 1893 prior to its Broadway run later that year at Star Theatre.

[68] He also utilized his gift as a writer for The Lambs, penning more than 100 dramatic and comedic sketches for various entertainments and events put on by the club during his time with the organization.

Spreckles and his wife, Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, used their philanthropy to build the Legion of Honor art museum in San Francisco.

[81] While visiting Los Angeles, Greene suffered from a vitreous hemorrhage in 1918 that caused him to lose sight suddenly in one of his eyes.