James David Sharman (born 12 March 1945) is an Australian director and writer for film and stage with more than 70 productions to his credit. He is renowned in Australia for his work as a theatre director since the 1960s, and is best known internationally as the director of the 1973 theatrical hit The Rocky Horror Show, its film adaptation The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and the film's follow-up, Shock Treatment (1981).
Contents
Biography
Early life
Sharman was born in Sydney, the son of boxing tent impresario and rugby league player James Michael "Jimmy" Sharman Jr. (1912–2006) and Christina McAndleish Sharman (née Mirchell; 1914–2003). He was educated in Sydney, though his upbringing included time spent on Australian showgrounds, where his father ran a travelling sideshow of popular legend, founded by his own father, called "Jimmy Sharman's Boxing Troupe". This brought him into contact with the world of circus and travelling vaudeville. Developing an interest in theatre, he graduated from the production course at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney in 1966.
Career
Sharman created a series of productions of experimental theatre, many for the Old Tote Theatre Company, culminating in a controversial staging of Mozart's Don Giovanni for Opera Australia when he was 21 years old. Over the following decade, he directed three rock musicals: Hair in 1969 (Sydney, Melbourne, Tokyo, Boston) (he also designed the original Sydney production); Jesus Christ Superstar in 1972 (Australia and Palace Theatre, London) and created the original production of The Rocky Horror Show with Richard O'Brien in 1973 (Royal Court Theatre, London – subsequently in Sydney, Los Angeles, Melbourne, New York City).
He co-wrote the screenplay and directed the international cult hit film The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) for Twentieth Century Fox and directed its loosely based sequel, Shock Treatment, in 1981. In 1985, he directed third year students at (NIDA) in a production of A Dream Play.
In the following decades, Sharman directed a series of new works and Australian premieres, including a series of productions of plays by Patrick White in the late 1970s – The Season at Sarsaparilla, Big Toys, Netherwood and A Cheery Soul – which are credited with reviving the Nobel Laureate's career as a dramatist.
He also directed the film The Night the Prowler, from a screenplay adapted by White from one of his short stories, and notable as White's only produced film screenplay. One of Sharman's most frequent creative collaborators was production designer Brian Thomson, a partnership that began at the Old Tote and continued through their ground-breaking and widely praised stage productions, the rock musicals Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar and The Rocky Horror Show, and the films Shirley Thompson vs. the Aliens, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Shock Treatment.
Sharman was artistic director of the Adelaide Festival of Arts in 1982 and, while in South Australia, he created Lighthouse, a theatre company which specialised in radical stagings of classics and premieres of new work by major Australian dramatists, including Louis Nowra, Stephen Sewell and Patrick White. The ensemble included many major Australian artists, including actors Geoffrey Rush, Gillian Jones, John Wood and Kerry Walker and associate director Neil Armfield, who would further develop this adventurous tradition at Sydney's Belvoir Street Theatre.
Honours
He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in the 2025 King's Birthday Honours for "distinguished service to the performing arts as a writer and director".
Select credits
Theatre
Still Life (1964) – Old Tote Theatre
The Sport of My Mad Mother (1964) - Old Tote Theatre
Inadmissible Evidence (1964) – Old Tote Theatre
Entertaining Mr Sloane (1965) – Old Tote Theatre
The Lover (1966) – AMP Theatrette, Sydney
The Gents (1966) – AMP Theatrette, Sydney
Operatic Concerto (1966) – NSW
Chips With Everything (1966) – Independent Theatre
A Taste of Honey (1967)
And So To Bed (1967) - Playhouse Theatre
Don Giovanni (1967) – national tour
The Flower Children, A Little Bourke Street Discotheque (1967) – Melbourne
The Birthday Party (1967) – St Martins Theatre, VIC
You Never Can Tell (1968) – Old Tote Theatre
Terror Australis (1968) – Jane Street Theatre
Norm and Ahmed (1968) – Old Tote Theatre
Hair (1969) – The Metro Theatre – later national tour (1971–73) and productions in New Zealand (1972), Tokyo, Boston
As You Like It (1971) – Parade Theatre
King Lear (1971) – Russell Street Theatre
Films
Arcade (1970) – 5-minute short
Roll up (1971) – unfinished documentary
Shirley Thompson vs. the Aliens (1972)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Summer of Secrets (1976)
The Night the Prowler (1978)
Shock Treatment (1981)
Awards and nominations
Helpmann Awards
The Helpmann Awards is an awards show, celebrating live entertainment and performing arts in Australia, presented by industry group Live Performance Australia (LPA) since 2001. In 2018, Sharman received the JC Williamson Award, the LPA's highest honour, for their life's work in live performance.