BASICALLY CHILDREN should be required reading for every college student. No one understands the way the Internet works like Charlie O’Leary.

This play really knows its way around a conversation. Seeing this scenario played out on the level of individual human connections brings some much needed complexity to what's often framed in the discourse as a clear-cut battle between age categories, or political affiliations. Nevertheless, it doesn't pull any punches demonstrating how a person on a mission that seems too obviously moral to question can become politically useful to their own enemies.

THIS PLAY... is prescient and brilliant. No one writes about the internet like Charlie. As discourse blooms and curdles on a once-a-month cycle these days, it is thrilling to see a writer tackle the Internet homophobia industrial complex with such compassion and skill. You will love and hate every character in equal measure, and you will laugh, cringe, and shiver in equal measure. I'm biased, but Basically Children is required reading for all people trying to make sense of the cultural behemoth that we are all a part of.