New York’s theater scene is in an undeniable slump, and Michael Billington thinks that it may be time to acknowledge that America’s best theater is no longer centered in the Big Apple, but on the shores of Lake Michigan. “No fewer than 156 theatre companies, predominantly non-profit, operate in the city. And while New York, with its suffocating commercialism, seems increasingly hidebound, it is to Chicago that the true theatregoer now avidly looks.”