The Sopranos Writers’ Room

If you’re a true fan of The Sopranos, you’ll know who David Chase is. His groundbreaking writing changed the television landscape forever and ushered in a golden age of TV dramas. But he didn’t do it alone. Working alongside him was a room full of writers, many of whom would go on to create their own successful shows after The Sopranos ended.

David of course deserves the credit not only for being the creator and primary voice behind The Sopranos, but also for inspiring a whole generation of writers. He’s without a doubt a genius. But like many geniuses, he could be difficult to work with, and his writing room produced not only drama on the page but in real life as well for his writers. And not enough people know who these writers are or the conflicts that went on inside that room.

So in this video I’m going to be highlighting some of the major figures that worked on the show, and hopefully help bring them the attention they deserve as writers.

Before we get started, I wanted to shout out the book Difficult Men by Brett Martin, which was very helpful in researching this video. It details a lot of the history and drama that went on in not only the Sopranos writing room, but also The Wire, Breaking Bad, and many more shows. If you're interested in television history and behind the scenes details, I would definitely recommend this book.

Now I’m not going to be discussing David Chase in detail in this video, because this is meant to highlight the other writers who helped make the Sopranos what it was. But if you want a detailed background to David and his other works, check out the video I did on him linked below.

Before we get into the writers though, I did want to mention someone who was influential to the show being created: Lloyd Braun. Lloyd was David Chase’s entertainment lawyer, and he not only encouraged him to work on a television series, which Chase really didn’t want to do at that point, but also gave him the mafia angle that would eventually become the Sopranos.

Now if that name sounds familiar to you, Lloyd also represented other people including Larry David, the creator of Seinfeld. Larry would create a character named Lloyd Braun in the series named after the real Lloyd.

Alright now let's get to the writers. David of course wrote and directed the pilot episode himself, but after the series got picked up he needed to hire for his writers room. Of the group he hired for this first season, only three would survive his incredibly high standards: Frank Renzulli, Robin Green, and Mitch Burgess.

Before writing on the Sopranos, Frank Renzulli had created the show The Great Defender, which starred Michael Rispoli. Frank was the only writer who really knew about how the mafia functioned, having grown up around those guys, and his experiences were essential for the authenticity of the show.

Robin Green and Mitch Burgess are actually a husband and wife writing team. They had previously worked with David on the show Northern Exposure. Robin has an interesting background, having worked both for Marvel comics as a secretary-receptionist for Stan Lee, and also as the only female reporter for Rolling Stone in the 70’s.

Like I said these three were the only ones to make it to the second season. The others were let go. One standout of this group though was James Manos Junior, who co-wrote the episode College which would win him and David Chase an Emmy. He would later go on to write the pilot for the show Dexter, which wound up being a highly successful series.

Going into Season 2, David hired two new writers. One was Terrence Winter, whom I'm sure most Sopranos fans will know. Terrence had previously worked with Frank Renzulli on The Great Defender, and had tried to get into the writers room for season one but was too late. However he would talk with Frank after work about episodes he was working on in season 1, so in a way he had already been working on the show from the very start.

Season Two is also when Michael Imperioli, who plays Christopher on the show, began to write as well. He would go on to write five episodes in total across the seasons.

The final hire was Todd Kessler. Kessler was described as something of a wunderkind, becoming deeply involved with David Chase in not only the writing but other aspects like editing and being on set. He also became close with Chase personally. There were rumors that David was planning on quitting the show and making Todd the showrunner, though David denies having ever said this. Together they co-wrote the episode Funhouse which was nominated for an Emmy for outstanding writing, with David writing the first half with the dream sequence and Todd writing the second half when they kill Pussy.

However the day of the nomination, David called Todd into his office to fire him. He said that the scripts he had been turning in were not at an acceptable quality, and that it would be better for him if Todd wasn’t there anymore When Todd pointed out that they had just been nominated for an Emmy for his writing, David reluctantly gave him one more chance to turn in a production ready script. Todd would write the episode “Fortunate Son” for season 3, but was ultimately fired from the show.

It's not clear what happened between Kessler and Chase. Maybe Kessler overestimated his relationship with David, or maybe David didn't like sharing the glory of an Emmy with another writer. For his part he has said that he doesn't remember this incident. Either way the news was devastating to Todd, who had become a close friend of James Gandolfini.

Todd would go on to co-create the show Damages with his brother Glenn. The show revolves around a brilliant but ruthlessly manipulative lawyer and her young, naive protégée whom she takes advantage of. Kessler has said that the show is at least partially inspired by his experiences working on The Sopranos, and thus the character of Patty Hewes is commentary on David Chase.

Season 3 saw the introduction of Lawrence Konner as a new writer for the team. There’s not much information about his time on the show, and he would only write a total of 3 episodes for the series. However years later he would end up co-writing the Many Saints of Newark with David Chase, which is an obvious mark of trust.

Now you might wonder why Chase chose to work with him instead of one of the other writers from the show? Well as we’ll see, there weren’t many writers left by the time the show ended.

In Season 3 Frank Renzulli also left the show. Supposedly he didn’t like the direction Chase was taking the characters, and he didn’t feel the show was being authentic to real life mafiosos. There also seemed to be some personal conflict between the two, as Frank's talkative personality among other issues really got under David’s skin.

There were no major changes to the writing team in Season 4, but Season 5 saw the addition of Matt Weiner. Weiner got the job in part due to David being impressed with a pilot script he had written. We'll get into this more later, but that pilot was of course the famous Mad Men script.

Toni Kalem, who played Angie Bonpensiero, also got to write an episode of Season 5.

Season 6 saw the introduction of Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider. Like Robin and Mitch, they were also a husband and wife writing team and they had also worked with Chase on Northern Exposure. They actually wrote 4 episodes of Season 6, which is quite a lot considering they were new to the show. However this was most likely due to Robin and Mitch being fired from the show.

Despite having worked with David the longest out of any of the writers, David had begun to grow frustrated with them. He said that it was like they were regressing, understanding the show and the characters less as time went on. They actually wrote another episode for season 6 with Tony in the hospital, but their episode ended up getting cut. Ultimately David fired them from the show.

Robin and Mitch would go on to create the show Blue Bloods for NBC, which has run for 14 seasons and is wrapping up its final season this year. However it seems like they were only involved in the first season, and were let go due to creative differences early on.

With Robin and Mitch gone, Terence Winter and Matt Weiner would become David's core team. Together they would write almost the entirety of Season 6B. It should be no surprise then that when the Sopranos ended, they each would go on to create their own shows using the lessons they had learned from their time on the Sopranos.

Winter would go on to create Boardwalk Empire for HBO, a show set in Atlantic City during Prohibition. The series would run for 5 seasons, and star many Sopranos alumni. HBO actually pitched Winter the idea based on a book they wanted to adapt, and Martin Scorsese was brought on very early on as a director and executive producer. Essentially Terence didn’t have to work very hard to get the show off the ground, as everyone was eager to work with him.

Weiner’s journey was a little different. His pilot script for Mad Men had become legendary at this point, having pitched it to every major network and been rejected. Even HBO, despite David Chase’s encouragement, refused to make the show. Now there are many reasons why this might have happened, which I’ll get into in more detail when I do my Mad Men retrospective, but one reason might have been Matt’s difficulty to work with. Reportedly many people on The Sopranos hated working with him, as he could be a kiss ass to those above him like Chase and a bully to those beneath him. It’s been long rumored that the reason Carolyn Strauss, the president of HBO, refused to even read the Mad Men script was because she never wanted to work with Matt again.

Ultimately Mad Men would land at AMC, a network which had never created original programming at that point. Their inexperience meant they had to just trust Matt’s vision and expertise. This gave him unparalleled power over the creative process that would almost certainly never happen again for another showrunner. Mad Men would run for seven seasons, winning AMC many awards and critical acclaim, though it would perpetually be overshadowed in the public by AMC’s other new show: Breaking Bad.

That brings us to the end of all the major figures behind the show. However I did want to give a shoutout to all the other writers I didn’t get a chance to mention. Mark Saraceni, Jason Cahill, Joe Bosso, Salvatore J. Stabile, Nick Santora, David Flebotte, and Michael Caleo. These writers don’t necessarily have stories or dramas worth including in this video, but regardless of how short their time on the show might have been, they still contributed to the shows success no matter how small.

Overall I hope I’ve given you some insight into the creative process behind the Sopranos. People don’t tend to pay too much attention to the writers of shows like they do other forms of media. But I think it’s important to give credit to the people behind the page. For all the mistakes, conflicts, and personal dramas behind the scenes, The Sopranos was a triumph they should all be proud of, and I hope this video helps bring some much deserved publicity to them. Thank you so much for watching, and stay tuned for more Sopranos content, coming soon!