The teenager both directed the play and performed the role of King Lear.
But three years ago, he didn't know anything about the famous playwright.
"When I heard of Shakespeare, I didn't even know who he was or where he was from," he said.
Matthews started Shakespeare in 2015 after he put his hand up to be a volunteer actor. He was part of his school's kapa haka group but he wanted to try his hand at acting.
"I wanted to try something new," he said. "I was a really shy person but drama has built my confidence a lot."
Since then, he has played roles in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Taming of the Shrew, and his latest - King Lear.
Now, he had plans to go to drama school next year at Toi Whakaari in Wellington.
Matthews' direction of King Lear included references to Māori culture. "We use taiaha instead of swords," he said.
He said he also added comedy to what was originally "a very tragic play".
Matthews said he had learned to love the language of Shakespeare.
"When I first started I couldn't understand it," he said. "But now I can understand it more."
To learn big lines with multiple parts, he said he learns line by line.
"I break it down," he said. "I would only learn two lines at a time and go over it. At the same time, I would do the accent. I had to do a lot of research."
Matthews is now fundraising for his trip in July next year, when he will spend two weeks at Shakespeare's Globe.
There, students will have sessions with highly acclaimed tutors and a director who will rehearse them in an hour-long version of a Shakespeare play, which will be performed on the Globe stage.
Students will also tour the Globe, the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, the Rose, the National, Royal Albert Hall and a Shakespeare "orienteering" course, as well as attend performances.
Matthews wanted to thank all of his teachers for their support.
King Lear:
Shakespeare's story of a king who divides his realm between his three daughters probes the depths of human suffering and despair.
First staged in 1606, for centuries King Lear was thought too bleak to perform, but its nihilism has heavily influenced modern drama.