Toxic parents, insensitive teachers, and manipulative friends prove to have as great a fallout on a group of children as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Jordan Seavey's simultaneously fascinating and frustrating black comedy Children at Play, now being presented by CollaborationTown at The Living Theatre.

Seavey takes theatergoers through the junior and senior high years of five young people, who transform from precocious, but still generally innocent, kids into jaded and frightened young adults. Along the way, they encounter principals who wearily offer hollow truisms and empty threats rather than leadership or inspiration, as well as sexually predatory teachers. (Jay Potter and Jennif[...]