Live theater will always be entertainment’s most intimate experience, due to television’s inability to splatter the audience with watermelon. Soak up the stage with today’s Groupon: for $17, you get one general-admission ticket to the Edgemar Center for the Arts' production of Sylvia in Santa Monica (a $35 value). This Groupon is good from May 21 through August 28 for Friday and Saturday performances at 7:30 p.m. or Sunday matinees at 5 p.m.

The Acting Studio at The Edgemar Center for the Arts has steered many a thespian onto the path to Oscar gold, and its playbill is consistently graced with renowned talent and winning productions. Next on the roster is A.R. Gurney’s Sylvia, which spins a heart-tugging yarn of middle-aged love, jealously, and poodle envy. In the midst of a complacent marriage, Greg spurs on his midlife crisis by adopting a poodle named Sylvia. As the pooch renews Greg's leash on life, his wife, Katie, slowly turns green with envy at man’s new best friend. The poodle, played charmingly by human Tanna Frederick, lends the play an inventive conceit-hook on which to hang the humor, humanity, and hard hats of relationships. Described as “delicious and dizzy” by New York Times critic Vincent Canby upon its debut, Sylvia has continued to delight theater-goers and dog lovers with its keen insight about both the human and canine condition.