Ron Parker

Ron Parker is currently a theatre educator and director at the Renaissance School for the Arts and Appleton North High School where he also teaches English Language Arts classes.  Prior to his time in Appleton, he taught theatre and English in Kenosha at both the middle and high school levels.  He has been named Educator of the Year for both the Kenosha Unified and Appleton Area school districts.  He is also the recipient of a Herb Kohl Fellowship for teacher excellence and is an inaugural inductee in the Wisconsin Theatre Educators Hall of Fame.  In his forty years as a public school educator, he has directed a wide variety of musicals and plays as well as original, devised works on various social justice issues.  He was a member of the  Department of Public Instruction’s writing team for the most recently revised Wisconsin Standards for Theatre.

Parker and his students have presented numerous workshops and presentations on stage combat, improvisation, and teaching/directing Shakespeare for theatre educators and students around Wisconsin. His students at Appleton North and Kenosha Tremper High schools have annually competed at the Wisconsin High School Theatre Festival where their  fully-staged one-act productions have been awarded the highest honor of Critic’s Choice for thirty consecutive years.  He is the founder and director of Summer Shakespeare Theatre–a performance program for high school students and Improvedy– a popular high school comedy improvisational  troupe.  He is a member of the Alliance of Wisconsin Theatre Educators and is also a published playwright.