As head of design at Dunedin's Fortune Theatre, Mr King was charged with making the set for Wuthering Heights.
What made the experience special for him was his family link to the novel's author, Emily Bronte.
He is understood to be Bronte's great-great-great-grandson.
Emma Branwell, his great-great-grandmother, was thought to be an illegitimate Bronte child.
She married Thomas King and moved from England to New Zealand.
A fragment of a story by Charlotte Bronte, Emma, was about an illegitimate child and referred to people who settled far from their land of birth, and the Bronte Society of England acknowledged an illegitimate daughter was born to one of the Bronte siblings.
This "strange enigma" was discovered by Mr King's cousin about 20 years ago while she was putting together a family tree and relationships "got a bit tangled up".
He thought it was "quite cool" and "interesting" to be connected to such a well-known literary family.
While "none of us can write for nuts", many of his family shared Bronte ailments, including asthma.
Jane Thornton's adaptation of Wuthering Heights opens at the Fortune on April 10.
