Ginette McDonald
Although Ginette McDonald's career is most associated with the gormless, vowel-mangling girl-from-the-suburbs: Lynn of Tawa, she is a woman of many parts. Alongside an extensive acting and presenting career, her work as producer and director spans three decades, and includes Shark in the Park, Gliding On, and kidult series The Fire-Raiser.
Peter Sharp
Peter Sharp is one of New Zealand's most prolific directors of screen drama. Though his directing work covers the gamut from police shows and soap satires to live performance, Sharp is best known for his work helming kidult dramas - including Maurice Gee period tales The Fire-Raiser and The Champion. He also directed award-winning mini-series Erebus: the Aftermath.
Rosemary McLeod
Best-known as an outspoken and award-winning columnist, Rosemary McLeod devised and was principal writer on iconic 80s soap Gloss, which detailed the lives and loves of a fashion magazine dynasty. She also created Bruno Lawrence/Ginette McDonald gender politics sitcom All Things Being Equal and has written scripts for Country GP.
Tessa Hoffe
Tessa Hoffe’s directing credits include Shortland Street and iconic British soaps Coronation Street, Hollyoaks and Grange Hill. The Wellington raised filmmaker has written and directed six short films, all selected for international film festivals. She has also directed children’s dramas, including World’s End and Bafta-nominated family tale Rocket's Island.
Simon O'Connor
Simon O'Connor began acting and writing for stage, radio and screen in the late 60s. In 1978, he co-starred as Ginette McDonald's hippy husband on live TV comedy All Things Being Equal. Later he was award-nominated as the meek husband of the murder victim in Heavenly Creatures, and starred as a likeable murderer in black comedy How to Murder Your Wife. O'Connor is also the winner of a Bruce Mason playwriting award.
Michael Haigh
Michael Haigh gave up teaching to become a professional actor. A founding member of Wellington’s Circa Theatre, his TV legacy is the gruff office worker Jim in Roger Hall’s Gliding On — one of NZ television’s great comic characters and a role that won him a Feltex Award. He played Jim for five years and appeared in a number of other TV series and films (almost inevitably playing a policeman). Michael Haigh died in 1993.
Fiona Samuel
Fiona Samuel, MNZM, has worked prolifically across so many fields that she defies labels: aside from acting on stage and screen, she is a playwright (The Wedding Party), director (TV movies Bliss and Piece of My Heart), scriptwriter (Consent, Outrageous Fortune) and singer (musical revue Babes in the Mood).
Hugh Macdonald
Hugh Macdonald began his long, award-studded career at the National Film Unit, where at 25 he directed ambitious three-screen spectacular This is New Zealand (1970), which was seen by 400,000 New Zealanders. In the 80s he produced Oscar-nominated short The Frog, the Dog, and the Devil and established his own company, continuing a busy diet of commercial films, train documentaries and animation.
Murray Reece
Murray Reece has been the director at a number of key turning points in New Zealand's television history: from the debut of our first drama series (Pukemanu), to the first telemovie (The God Boy), to the episode of Country Calendar where Fred Dagg first showed us around the farm.
Katie Wolfe
New Plymouth born Katie Wolfe has made the transition from actor to director. After leading roles in Marlin Bay, Cover Story, and Mercy Peak she stepped behind the camera in 2002, directing on Shortland Street. In 2008 she directed her first short film This Is Her, which screened at festivals around the globe. Wolfe's adaptation of Witi Ihimaera novel Nights in the Garden of Spain screened on TV in January 2011.