Homebaked Shakespeare

One of the perks of my job is that I get to read really strange, fabulous things. This week I was re-reading The Enchanted Isle, an adaptation of The Tempest written 60 years later than the original by a couple of guys who thought the play would be better with a bunch of new characters added to the island. Caliban and Miranda get sisters, and Prospero gets a foster son who's never seen a woman before.

Shakespeare is like a box of K'nex: You can just keep adding on to the base and creating new things, until a bench transforms into a googly-eyed ferris wheel. Why not?

But if you want to succeed in show business today, you have to think less about adaptations and more about spin-offs: rejected Bachelor ladies become the next Bachelorette; Bethenny gets married; Wolverine gets his own movie.

So...in the spirit of 21st-century Hollywood standards, I pitch you:

"Two and a Half Bros"

(a half-hour single-camera sitcom)

After leaving Prospero's island, Trinculo, Stephano, and Caliban move in to a fabulous rent-controlled apartment together in Culver City to realize their dreams of stardom. The hitch? It's a gay-family-only complex! If they want to keep their digs, then Trinculo and Stephano have to pretend they're a couple, and Caliban has to pose as their five-year-old son! Hilarity ensues as the men have to stop Caliban from raping his Kindergarten teacher, explain to their neighbors why their "son" smells like a brewery, and plan their commitment ceremony.