Chicago Tribune
- Recommended
"...Clearly, this is a play based on personal experience (although I suspect Gilman had shrewdly flipped genders) and it achieves an uncommon intimacy with the viewer (another Gilman strength). It’s also an interesting meditation on one of life’s most complicated questions. And it comes with Gilman’s typically humanistic combination of warmth and balance. Although there is no doubt in my mind at the end over which side the playwright is taking, there is the most moving expression of the opposite need."
Chicago Sun Times
- Recommended
"...Though Gilman's play starts off a bit stiffly, it gathers momentum and delivers a genuine payoff. The actors are ideal. And Dwight's hilarious monologue about parents of toddlers who travel with Tupperware containers full of Cheerios is bound to become an audition classic."
Daily Herald
- Recommended
"...Drawn from the playwright's personal experience and titled after a lyric from "Positively 4th Street" by Bob Dylan, "The Crowd You're In With" unfolds on Chicago's North Side on July 4, 2007, in the well-manicured backyard of a classic two-flat, flawlessly recreated by designer Kevin Depinet. With its wooden porches and tidy lawn, weathered metal chairs and electrical lines extending from the roof, Depinet's meticulously detailed set is charmingly familiar."
Chicago Reader
- Somewhat Recommended
"...An experienced couple disabusing young people of their innocence might call to mind Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?--except that Gilman never allows us to see any cracks in the older couple's certainty, and consequently the whole thing feels rather smug. In Wendy C. Goldberg's slick production, only Janelle Snow hits a nerve as a quietly unhappy woman who's desperate to conceive."
Windy City Times
- Highly Recommended
"...To breed, or not to breed? Playgoers fond of action-fueled plots may wonder what's so exciting about a buncha people sittin' around a backyard picnic swapping opinions, but Gilman has a knack for articulating precisely the arguments needed to address the topic at hand with an efficiency that never feels forced or stilted. The result makes for a lively and entertaining symposium, even for audience members whose minds are already made up, as each individual is forced to justify their position and its effect on those they love."
Copley News Service
- Highly Recommended
"...I haven’t been a big Rebecca Gilman fan before this play. I thought she wrote great individual scenes in otherwise very modest works. But in “The Crowd You’re in With,” she’s created her most sustained writing. The dialogue is realistic and charged with subtext. There are no false notes of melodrama. Every character sounds authentic and the discussion about children, for and against, arises naturally."
ChicagoCritic
- Highly Recommended
"...Coburn Coss, Linda Gehringer and Sean Cooper gave particularly strong performances. The Crowd You’re In With is an engrossing 85 minute one-act that will stimulate debate on your way home about life choices. Every young couple thinking about having children should see this play."
Chicago Stage and Screen
- Highly Recommended
"...This is one to see! It might be best to see this with another couple so that after the show on the ride home or going out for coffee you can discuss what you saw and felt. This is truly a work that will make you think and want to discuss what you saw. Ms. Gilman just keeps maturing with each play that she writes. I can't wait to see the next one. The Goodman has quality theater at very affordable prices, so take advantage. Do not miss this one. In fact, I am going back again as I am sure due to the laughter I missed some of the next lines of dialogue and want to experience this one again."
Chicago Theater Beat
- Recommended
"...The best part of the production is the gorgeous set, designed by Kevin Depinet. The back of the two-story flat is created with meticulous attention to detail, complete with a hummingbird feeder. Brought to life by Josh Epstein lighting, it is the perfect location for a barbecue. If only our actual Chicago summer so far matched the summer on the Owen Stage."
