The Writers' Room¶
Small, stable, and unusually consequential — three of the people in it went on to create defining series of the following decade.
How it worked¶
David Chase ran it as an autocracy, by universal account. He wrote or co-wrote a handful of episodes per season and rewrote nearly everything else, sometimes heavily.
Stories were broken in the room and then broken down further — shot by shot, during script development — which is a film-production habit rather than a television one and is a large part of why the show looks the way it does. See Direction & Craft.
Twenty writers or writing teams received credit across 86 episodes, but the core was about six people.
The core¶
Robin Green & Mitchell Burgess¶
A married writing team who came with Chase from Northern Exposure. They were with the show from season one and became executive producers.
Their credits are among the best in the run: "College"'s companion pieces, "Employee of the Month" (Melfi's rape), "Whoever Did This" (Ralph's death), "Cold Cuts," and co-writing "Whitecaps."
They tend to get the episodes about women and about damage, and they're consistently the show's least sentimental writers.
Terence Winter¶
Joined in season two and became the show's other defining voice — executive producer from season five.
His credits are the ones people quote: "Pine Barrens," "Long Term Parking," "Members Only," "The Second Coming," and a long list besides. Winter writes the funniest dialogue in the series and also its most brutal single hour, frequently in the same episode.
He went on to create Boardwalk Empire (2010–14) for HBO, starring Steve Buscemi, and co-wrote The Wolf of Wall Street.
Matthew Weiner¶
Hired for season five after Chase read his spec pilot for a period drama about advertising executives. That script was Mad Men, which Weiner made after The Sopranos ended.
His Sopranos credits include "Kennedy and Heidi," "The Test Dream" (with Chase), "The Blue Comet" (with Chase), and "Mayham." He gravitates toward the dream material and the psychological interiors — which is recognizably the same writer who made Mad Men.
Frank Renzulli¶
Season one through three, and the writer most responsible for the texture of the criminal world — the earning, the slights, the day-to-day mechanics. "Pax Soprana," "The Happy Wanderer," "Amour Fou," "Nobody Knows Anything."
He and Chase reportedly clashed, and he left after season three.
Others¶
Todd A. Kessler (co-wrote "Funhouse"; later created Damages). Diane Frolov & Andrew Schneider (season six, including the Vito New Hampshire episodes). Lawrence Konner (later co-wrote The Many Saints of Newark). Jason Cahill. James Manos Jr. (co-wrote "College"; later developed Dexter). Salvatore J. Stabile. Michael Caleo. Nick Santora. Toni Kalem. David Flebotte.
And Michael Imperioli — an actor who wrote five episodes, which is genuinely rare.
The alumni effect¶
The room produced an unusual number of showrunners:
| Writer | Went on to |
|---|---|
| Matthew Weiner | Mad Men |
| Terence Winter | Boardwalk Empire, The Wolf of Wall Street |
| Todd A. Kessler | Damages, Bloodline |
| James Manos Jr. | Dexter (developed) |
Together with the directors it trained, this is a substantial share of the following fifteen years of prestige television, and it's the most concrete form the show's influence takes. See Legacy & Influence.