Herb Parker has a collection of bobble-head figures in his office – baseball players, political figures including Schwarzenegger, Clinton and Obama – but reigning over all of them, on a pedestal at his keyboard is the Bard. In the classroom, he can’t, but on stage, as well as in his office, this professional actor and university professor of theater can play favorites, and “old Bill Shakespeare,” as he calls him, holds that spot.

In his nearly a decade at ETSU, Parker has acted in or directed four of old Bill’s plays. In addition to five productions of “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which he is now directing at ETSU’s Bud Frank Theatre, Parker has been in “Romeo and Juliet” five times, “Macbeth” twice, “Merry Wives of Windsor” twice, “Taming of the Shrew,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” “Titus Andronicus,” “The Winter’s Tale,” “King Lear and Antony & Cleopatra.” “One Midsummer in Roanoke,” a “King Lear” in Kansas City, and “R&J” in Nashville.

He’d still like to play the spontaneous Falstaff in Henry IV, but for now, directing one of his favorites is a worthy and enthralling endeavor.

“In general, I’m always interested in doing a Shakespeare play every chance I get,” Parker said. “No. 1, I love it but, No. 2, it gives me so much chance to train.”

This spring term, Parker is not only directing “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which continues this week, Thursday through Sunday, but also teaching a class called Shakespeare Comedy! to give students of theater an extra dose of Bard-specific training and “to give the cast a chance to get extra work,” he said.

“There are hundreds of things they need to learn and discover which will not be complete with this production but it will be under way.”

All four young lovers – in this play about love that “never does run smooth” – are new to performing Shakespeare, as are several others in ETSU’s single spring main-stage play. “We are doing all we can to help them,” Parker said with a smile.

Sophomore Chelsea Kinser as Helena, freshman Josh Holley as Demetrius, Hannah Hasch as Hermia and Brock Cooley as Lysander are doing all they can to absorb as much as they can from the Shakespearean pro. “Herb’s passion for Shakespeare erupts passion in us,” said Cooley, an 18-year-old freshman portraying the quixotic Lysander.

Many people, including young actors, assume they won’t understand Shakespeare, or that his meaning is deep and difficult, Parker said. “They assume the language is too far above them,” he said, “but it’s just human desire and needs he’s talking about, maybe their own desires and needs.”

In high school, Hasch said, her teachers didn’t really expect students to completely grasp Shakespeare. Parker does. “There’s nothing in this play I don’t understand,” said the 18-year-old freshman.

“Herb said, ‘Once you understand the lines, it will be easy,’ ” said theatre major Kinser. “I never really appreciated Shakespeare’s writing until now.”

The language is complicated by poetic meter, Parker said, so he works hard to emphasize punctuation “so that, goodness forbid, they do not sound like they’re speaking a limerick.”

Even the upperclassmen and theater students with experience dig deep in Parker’s rehearsals and sessions. “For the first time in Shakespeare, I have had a problem, because much of what I have to say is exposition .” said Samuel Floyd, who portrays the spiteful Oberon, the king of the fairies, “and some of the most beautiful passages in the play, and I have to get people to understand what I say and still keep the beauty. It’s a challenge, a good challenge and a fun challenge – if you don’t get too frustrated.”

Yet Parker does not focus with his actors on lines alone. “The quicker I can get the actors their blocking the quicker they can physicalize their movements . Their greatest fun is with their feet on the stage,” he said.

Senior theatre major Savannah Arwood has found that actions speak as loud as words, especially as Puck in “Midsummer.”

“One of Herb’s lessons is that you need to have activity to go with the pretty words,” said Arwood, who is marking her third Shakespearean play with Parker, in addition to many days in his classes.

“In that regard, Herb is good about breaking down your barriers, because he is rather ruthless, merciless . I credit Herb that a lot of my walls and insecurities are knocked down. ‘It’s a play. Just do something,’ he will say. It can be frustrating. It can make you cry, but my confidence on stage has increased unbelievably.

“There’s something about the way he explains things that clicks for me, almost always.”

As the cast of Midsummer meanders into ETSU’s Bud Frank Theatre for a 7 p.m. rehearsal, Parker illustrates his creative motivational modus operandi, calling out in his basso profundo voice, “Take the stage and do with it what you will. Everything is fair game. The choices are yours.”

“Herb pushes me to act outside of my head,” Floyd said. “I like to have things planned out and Herb pushes me to do something different. It instigates the creative process for me. I like subtle moments, but Herb likes the actors to earn subtle moments, and otherwise keep things vivid and large.

“If you make one big choice, others will follow. In the end, you can find out what works best.”

While the actors are making big choices, so is the director, testing out what will work with stage “business,” costumes, projections or set design. “Herb is very organic, very impromptu,” said scenic designer and professor Dr. Delbert Hall. “If someone has an idea, he said, ‘Let’s try it.’ When it’s all said and done, it turns out to be the right thing, or he makes it the right thing. It all works.”

That organic openness makes the process of learning this “new language” through Parker’s method an adventure – interestingly, an adventure acted out in front of an audience.

“The thing about Herb is,” said Holley, who portrays Demetrius, “he knows so much about Shakespeare but he doesn’t do the same old stuff. He is really creative. Every day is full of new experiences, new learning.”

The adventures of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” will continue Thursday-Saturday, Feb. 24-26 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 27 at 2 p.m. in ETSU’s Bud Frank Theatre in Gilbreath Hall, first floor. For reservations and information, call (423) 439-6511 or go to www.etsu.edu/theatre.

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