Biography
Joseph Tropiano is an American screenwriter. His first feature credit was the 1996 comedy-drama Big Night, which he co-wrote with Stanley Tucci. The film, directed by Tucci and Campbell Scott, follows two Italian immigrant brothers running a restaurant on the New Jersey shore in the 1950s. It received critical acclaim and won the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance.
Tropiano attended Yale University and later Columbia University on a Richard Rodgers Scholarship. His early professional work included public relations writing for The Washington Post and contributions to PBS documentaries and the CBS series Picket Fences. He later wrote the 2004 television film Just Desserts and published a novelisation of Big Night with recipes.
