	Papp was born as "Joseph Papirofsky" in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, the son of Yetta (née Miritch), a seamstress, and Samuel Papirofsky, a trunkmaker. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia. (The 2010 documentary film "Joe Papp in Five Acts" says his mother was a Lithuanian Jew, and his father a Polish Jew.) He was a high school student of Harlem Renaissance playwright Eulalie Spence.