A failed actor-turned-worse-high-school-drama-teacher rallies his Tucson, Arizona students as he conceives and stages a politically-incorrect musical sequel to Shakespeare's "Hamlet."
Dana Marschz is a failed actor and recovering alcoholic who's moved to Tucson to teach high-school drama, where he's plagued by bad reviews, student indifference, budget woes (he and his wife, who is trying to get pregnant, take in a boarder), and his own teaching limitations. Because the other electives are closed, he finds himself with a large class of seeming gang-bangers, and the principal informs him that drama will be cut next trimester. On a student reviewer's advice, Dana decides to stage his own play, a sequel to "Hamlet" in which the prince and Jesus use a time machine to try to save Gertrude and Ophelia. Can Dana pull something off for once?—<jhailey@hotmail.com>
The creative life has been difficult for Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan) as he has fallen from an acting career based on info-commercials to teaching drama in a High School in Tucson and writing and producing stage versions of popular movies that get panned even by the local High School drama critic. Dana and his wife Brie (Catherine Keener) are trying to have a child and additionally take on a border Gary (David Arquette) to help make ends meet. When he is informed that Drama Class is cancelled due to budget cuts Dana decides to write an original play to garner attention and get funding, but when he pens Hamlet 2, a zany and offensive sequel to the famous English play the High School as well as the entire town rise up to suppress his art. His talented Drama class consisting of latent homosexual Rand Posin (Skylar Astin), the desperate, well-meaning Epiphany Sellers (Phoebe Strole), the down-to-Earth Ivonne (Melonie Diaz), and the tough kid Octavio (Joseph Julian Soria), among others, want their hard work to have an artistic life so they find a warehouse and pool together their resources to put on the play with a variety of visual and aural special effects.
