Jim Sharman
Jim Sharman
Jim Sharman is a stage and screen director and writer. Jim directed three era-defining musicals – Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar and The Rocky Horror Show – in Australia, the UK, Japan and the USA. He revived and premiered the stage and screen work of Patrick White and premiered new work by, among others, Louis Nowra and Stephen Sewell. His 70-plus productions include classics by Shakespeare, Brecht and Lorca and plays by Pinter, Orton and Sam Shepard.
Jim premiered the opera Voss and staged Don Giovanni, The Threepenny Opera, The Rake’s Progress, Cosi Fan Tutte and Death in Venice. His screen work includes White’s The Night the Prowler, online musical Andy X and the international cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show for Twentieth Century Fox.
Jim was Artistic Director of the ground-breaking 1982 Adelaide Festival of Arts featuring Pina Bausch and he also created the Lighthouse for the State Theatre Company of South Australia.
He won the 2005 Helpmann Award for Best Direction of a Play for Three Furies – Scenes from the Life of Francis Bacon and was presented with the 2017 Centenary JC Williamson Award, by Live Performance Australia, honouring his outstanding contribution to the performing arts.
His memoir, Blood and Tinsel, was published by Melbourne University Publishing in 2008.