Sharpe, Robert Redington, 1904-1934

American theatrical designer, Sharpe was the art director of the Pasadena Playhouse (1924-1926, 1931-1932) and of the Theater am Kurfürstendamm in Berlin (1927). He designed sets and costumes for plays in New York, Los Angeles, and Maine; his most critically successful designs were for the Theatre Guild's Major Barbara (1928) and Tobacco Road (1933/34).

Robert Redington Sharpe (1904-1934) was an American theatrical designer. Sharpe was born in Boston, the son of George Bertram Sharpe, an advertising executive and Leslie Redington Sharpe. In 1919 the family moved to Cleveland where Sharpe studied at the Cleveland Art Institute while attending high school. In 1922 he went to New York City to study scene design with Norman Bel Geddes, and in 1924 he moved to Los Angeles where he became the first art director of the Pasadena Community Playhouse (1924-1926). From 1926-1928 he studied in Paris and Berlin and in 1927 was briefly the art director of the Theater am Kurfürstendamm in Berlin. He returned to New York in 1928 and continued to design sets and costumes; his most critically successful designs after this time being for the Theatre Guild's Major Barbara (1928) and Tobacco Road (1933-1934). Sharpe was found violently beaten and robbed in the subway in New York on 12 May 1934 and he died of head injuries two days later at the age of thirty. Source: American National Biography Online, 2010.