A New Zealand gun shop is selling and promoting the AR-15 rifle, the firearm synonymous with American mass shootings.

An original art work depicting Captain Cook's arrival in the Pacific is being restored for display at Te Papa.

The superb retrospective show of photographer Fiona Pardington at Auckland Art Gallery, which finishes this weekend, is a series of essays.

Unfortunately, the performance needed more polish if one was to overlook the conservatism of the programming.

Modern theatre frequently brings together disparate cultures to create vivid and dramatic storytelling and it's certainly true with Auckland's Matariki Festival programme.

Universities to set up three Asia-Pacific centres of excellence.

Zoom, the first of NZTrio's 2016 Loft concerts, did just that for a taut 70 minutes of music, with matching Zoom cocktails available at the downstairs bar for thirsty patrons.

Todd Emerson goes back to 1980s NZ in three of his current roles in TV3 series Westside, the popular play Hudson and Halls and Kiwi rock musical Daffodils.

Call it a case of life imitating art. Copies of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird have become hot property at Auckland libraries.

The Auckland Art Gallery is showing a small exhibition of lithographs by Honore Daumier that acts as a lively adjunct to the current Auckland Festival of Photography.

In a brazen one-man performance, Potato Stamp Megalomaniac depicts a real life roller coaster breakdown.

In book publishing, there is James Patterson - and basically everyone else.

Hot on the heels of 100 Maori and Pacific artists visiting Guam for the 12th Festival of Pacific Arts, Salisbury is the next destination for a contingent of NZ artists.

This year's big important NZ rock book has arrived and it's by the guy who founded Flying Nun. Here, he comes Clean about why and how he wrote it.

COMMENT: I'm going to selectively quote from a Pablo Neruda poem titled To Wash a Child.

At just 21 years old, Zac Johns plays a pivotal role in the latest production of Evita. You won't see Johns on stage, though.

Stephen Jewell talks to British author Chris Cleave about bravery, racism and how he avoids getting stuck in a writing groove.

When it comes to crime fiction, New Jersey-based writer Harlan Coben is Big Business.

Gates' 2016 list of reads, complete with an animated video describing his picks.

Kiwi ballerina Hannah O'Neill has been named dancer of the year at the prestigious Benois de la Danse competition, often described as the Oscars of dance.

Eve de Castro-Robinson introduced her Karlheinz Company programme as music that was vivid, visceral and singular.

The 34-year-old son of a Samoan church minister has done TV, film and stand-up comedy but says theatre is his first love.

It goes to show, as Hare says, the audience - the way it reacts and responds and its current concerns - shapes theatre.

At 82, Gloria Steinem - the woman who spearheaded the women's liberation movement in the United States and beyond - was smoking hot.

The Auckland Writers Festival, under way at civic centre venues this week, is a testament to the continued value of the written word.

Courtroom drama has a peculiar capacity to grip an audience.