Being Eve was a popular and self-aware comedy-drama for teens. It launched the career of actor Fleur Saville, who played 15-year-old teen anthropologist Eve. This excerpt from episode 22 of series two sees angst and ambition collide, as Eve dreams of Hollywood success via a school Shakespeare production. Shakespeare himself makes a cameo (as Eve's muse), while she struggles with her original vision for the classic. But will she be upstaged by Sam? The series later won best drama at the 2005 NZ Screen Awards, and fostered young directing and producing talent.

This documentary shows two directors and a cast of actors working to breathe new life into Shakespeare. Veteran Ian Mune prepares to tackle one of the most difficult leading roles in classical theatre: King Lear. "If you're gonna climb hills, why not Everest?" he says. The unorthodox, bring it alive approach of Theatre At Large directors Anna Marbrook and Christian Penny (future director of Toi Whakaari) seems to err on the side of playfulness. But viewers are shown there is a method to their madness, when scenes from Shakespeare's drama are presented in beautifully-lit tableaus.

This award-winning Candle Wasters web series mixes A Midsummer Night’s Dream with a teen house party. In the first two episodes, Puck (Meesha Rikk) hits the party in time to witness a showdown, while Lena (Kalisha Wasasala) worries about when to make a romantic move. Then Puck crashes a young activists’ meeting — inspired by the original play's comical Mechanicals — in the bedroom of Petra (Thomasin McKenzie from Leave No Trace). The third Shakespeare adaptation by The Candle Wasters added NZ On Air funding and "token dude" Robbie Nicol to the creative team. 

Reality series Tough Act follows first-year students at New Zealand's most famous drama school. In this episode personal lives clash with professional aspirations. The students' first professional production looms. As they rehearse scenes from Shakespeare, distractions are everywhere. Hollie is grieving after news of an accident and class romances are put to the test when partners perform intimate scenes with colleagues. When Sophie sleeps in and misses a rehearsal, she faces serious consequences. The series was nominated for two local awards for Best Reality Series.

Awatea, a young warrior, is enraged when his lover Te Po, a high-born chief's daughter, enters an arranged marriage. Retribution is swift and brutal. Set in the late 16th century and based on a Shakespeare sonnet ("my love is as a fever, longing still"), the storytelling of Te Po Uriuri is visceral, and suitably mythic in style. Ruru hoot, bloody patu gleam, and bodies and the oily black of the night are vividly shot by Waka Attewell. Directed by Toby Mills and filmed in te reo, it was selected for the Hamburg International Film Festival.

Erua tells the story of an intriguing friendship between artist Toss Woollaston (Grant Tilly) and a young Māori boy Erua (Turei Reedy) who modelled for him each Wednesday evening in Greymouth, in the early 60s. Woollaston had seen the boy playing "like one dark bead shaken in a tray of pale ones". The image made him curious to find what Erua was like, and to try to draw "that". Tilly won a 1989 NZ Film and Television Award for his performance; he argued that it was "an awesome responsibility" to play someone who was still alive. Erua also won awards for Best Drama and Screenplay.

This Review episode from 1973 offers an interview with Hone Tuwhare — then 51 years old — at the Māori Writers' and Artists' Conference at Tukaki Marae, in the town of Te Kaha. One of New Zealand’s best-loved and lauded poets, Tuwhare speaks of various influences, including sex, religion, trade unionism and communism. Poet Rowley Habib sits alongside Hone in the interview, and occasionally contributes to the conversation. This documentary also features a poetry reading from Dunedin's Globe Theatre.

Director Sima Urale's follow-up to her Venice-winning short O Tamaiti swaps a Samoan child's eye view for that of an elderly Pākehā couple. In this moving confrontation with the taboos of aging, the husband struggles to care for his ailing wife and refuses their children's demands that they move into care. Exquisite attention to details and tender performances mark this tale of love accommodating the reality of death. Still Life was the first Kiwi film to take the top short award at the Montreal Film Festival; it also got a Special Mention at the Locarno fest in Switzerland.

Nightly magazine-style show Town and Around played on New Zealand screens during the second half of the 60s. Hosted by Peter Read, this end-of-1968 special from the Wellington edition showcases highlights from over 500 items that year. The concentration is on lighter material, most famously a hoax piece on a farmer who puts gumboots on his turkeys. In another piece reporter John Shrapnell discovers that locked cars in the city tend to be the exception. Also featured: an interview with entertainer Rolf Harris, and an impromptu Kiwi street-Hamlet.

Kidult drama Gather your Dreams follows Kitty (Kerry McGregor), an aspiring performer travelling with her family's vaudeville troupe in 1930s NZ. In this episode, the troupe competes for viewers with boxing promoter Ted Crawley (George Henare) at a Depression relief camp. Troupe patriarch Wallace (Terence Cooper) plots to best Crawley by managing "Haggis the brawling Scot" (actor's agent and On the Mat legend Robert Bruce’s acting debut). But the 'worker's hope' turns out to be a stooge with a glass jaw. Will coaching from Kitty save the day? The show must go on!