Herbert George Gardner (December 28, 1934 - September 25, 2003), better known as Herb Gardner, was an American commercial artist, cartoonist, playwright and screenwriter.

Gardner is best known for his 1962 play A Thousand Clowns, which ran for two years. He received an Oscar nomination for the screenplay for the successful 1965 movie adaptation. The play was revived in 1996 and 2001. Both the 1962 play and the movie starred Jason Robards, Jr. as Murray Burns, a charming, unemployed children's show writer with Peter Pan Syndrome, who is forced to choose between social conformity and the probable loss of custody of his 11-year-old nephew to the Child Welfare Bureau. The Robards character was in part based on Gardner's friend at that time, humorist Jean Shepherd.

There is no entry about the play available on Wikipedia at this time, but here is a link to the film entry.