In Memoriam

November 15, 1946-September 10, 2026

Alexis Greene was the author and editor of numerous books about the theater, including The Lion King: Pride Rock on Broadway (Disney Publishing, 1998) written with Julie Taymor; a biography, Emily Mann: Rebel Artist of the American Theater (Applause Theater and Cinema Books, 2021) and Shakespeare Theatre Company: The History of a Classical Theater (Peter E. Randall Publisher, 2025). In addition to writing books about theater, Greene’s career spanned acting, theater criticism, dramaturgy, and teaching; she attended Vassar College as an undergraduate and held a Ph.D. from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Born and raised in New York City, Greene lived part-time in Manhattan and part-time upstate in Walton, New York, with her husband, Gordon R. Hough. Following Alexis’s death, Gordon sent this to friends:

Late in 2025, Alexis began telling friends that she had been diagnosed with ALS, news that she conveyed with amazing equanimity and surprising good cheer. She set about putting her affairs in order, and published several writing projects that she wanted to see come out in what she anticipated would probably be the last months of her life.

The first was a memoiristic essay, “Live Theater— An Incomparable Art Form,” for which her literary agency Philip Turner Book Productions arranged publication in The Arts Fuse last February. She wrote, in part,

“I fell in love with theater when I was nine years old. I was growing up in New York City, and in the fall of 1954, friends of my mother took me to see the Broadway musical Peter Pan, starring Mary Martin as Peter and Cyril Ritchard as the villainous Captain Hook. It was the first time I’d ever been inside a theater, and I loved where we were sitting: in a box on the right side of the magnificent Winter Garden Theatre. I loved the show, and I especially adored Margalo Gillmore, who played Mrs. Darling, the loving mother of the children whom Peter Pan invites to fly with him to Neverland. I was entranced by the gowns that Mrs. Darling wore—I wanted to be an actress….Eventually, I found my true calling: writing and editing books about theater companies and theater artists, especially women. All of these vocations intensified my love for live theater.”

Another piece of writing that Alexis was eager to publish was a poem titled, “Love’s Mantle,” for which her agents also arranged publication, in The Seaboard Review of Books.

Snow descends in icy flakes,
Coating the hills and drifting ’round lakes.
Covering houses and fields and trees,
Snow whitens the world as far as you can see.

Cold to the touch.
Wet on your skin,
Snow, winter’s blanket,
Protects the life within.

Far beneath the drifts and mounds,
Animals burrow, cozy and warm.
All winter long they dream animal dreams,
Of running through grass, swimming in streams.

Digging deep holes is gopher’s reverie,
While building dams is beaver’s fancy.
Chipmunk sleeps with her store of food,
and skunk spends winter in a dozing mood.

Cold to the touch,
Wet on your skin,
Snow, winter’s blanket,
Protects the life within.

Far beneath the coat of snow
Flowers and plants wait to grow.
Nestling deep in the rich, dark ground,
Seeds yearn for spring and the call to rebound.

The lily awaits a sunny day,
When the snow becomes dense, then melts away.
Lily and iris, dandelion and clover
Will reach toward the sky when winter is over.

And you, sleeping soundly in our snow-covered home,
Do you dream of spring and places to roam?
What do you yearn for, as there you lie?
How will you grow? Will you reach for the sky?

Warm to the touch,
Soft on the skin,
Love, the truest mantle,
Protects life within.

Alexis’s mind remained sharp during her illness, but her ability to speak was affected by the condition; even with that, she stayed in regular contact with friends, on the phone when she could, and via text or email. She also received visits from friends at the book-lined apartment she shared with her husband. Later, in the summer of 2026, she learned about a new theater book, I’ve Got the Shakes: Performing Richard Foreman, by Shauna Kelly. She quickly wrote a review of the book, for which her agents also arranged publication, again in the Arts Fuse, “Voices From Inside Richard Foreman’s Ontological Theater.” She closed her 1,100 word review essay it with these words:

“Foreman’s theater was not a theater of plays with linear structure, psychologically motivated characters, and realistic scenic design. Rather, Kelly’s book describes and evokes for theater lovers the experimental and stimulating body of work in which Foreman shaped a different vision of theater, with a vibrancy all its own.”

Upon her passing, M. G. Turner, Executive Editor of Philip Turner Book Productions, wrote this poem, “On the Passing of a Woman of the Theater”:

We heard today she died,

The great woman of the theater

Who though she did not grace the stage

Wrote decorous and illuminated books

Upon the life of its art,

Thus making her a scholar

Of drama, tragedy, farce, and comedy

Perhaps even clown and parody

 

But now the curtain has slipped, dropped,

Descended, and the audience

Wanting more insightful demonstrations

Begrudgingly rises from its seats

With her still on their minds:

Alas she’s with the bard now,

Her heart beat its last to the thrum

Of his iambic pentameter

Which softly ended

All revels and revues.

It was very meaningful to Alexis that in the last months of her life she was able to help her publish her autobiographical essay on live theater, the poem, “Love’s Mantle,” and her review of I’ve Got the Shakes, each an example of her tremendous creativity and productivity.

OTHER WRITING, OTHER PROJECTS

All told, Alexis was the author and editor of eleven books, most of them involving the work of women in the American theater. Before embarking on her biography of Emily Mann, she edited a collection of Yvette Heyliger’s bold plays, What a Piece of Work is Man! Full-Length Plays for Leading Women. She was a member of PEN, The Authors Guild, and the League of Professional Theatre Women (LPTW). She served on the committee that organized the LPTW Gilder-Coigney International Theatre Award Program, which brings together women who create theater all over the world, from Lebanon to Tanzania to India to the United States. Her interview with the Lebanese theater artist Hanane Hajj Ali, who is the recipient of the Gilder / Coigney Award, appeared in American Theatre magazine.

As an arts journalist she wrote for numerous national publications, including The New York Times, The New York Daily News, American Theatre Magazine, and Dramatics Magazine. Her Ph.D. in Theater was from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York; she also taught dramatic criticism at New York University and Marymount Manhattan College, among other universities and colleges.

LITERARY MANAGERS AND DRAMATURGS OF THE AMERICAS

During her career she co-founded and was first president of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA), the international organization serving dramaturgs and literary managers in the performing arts. She was proud that LMDA helped transform the American theater’s approach to nurturing and supporting our dramatists. For more information, please see LMDA.org.

A DETOUR FROM THEATER

In 2008, when the economy imploded, she took a five-year leave from theater to be Public Relations Director for the Community Environmental Center (CEC) in Queens, New York. This ground-breaking not-for-profit, which brought sustainability to New York City apartment buildings and homes, raised her awareness of the urgency of fighting the causes of climate change.

WRITING TRUE CRIME STORIES

Alexis was born and raised in New York City, and also came to love upstate New York, where she and her husband, Dr. Gordon R. Hough, regularly restored themselves. There, she plunged into a whole new genre as an author: writing true crime stories. She discovered that the Catskills were rife with enough stories of betrayal and revenge to fill several books.