Live theater tends to be more thrilling than film, largely due to the heightened odds of seeing someone flub a line or deliver a stirring monologue while sitting in your lap. Vicariously live the freewheeling thespian life with today’s GrouponLive deal: for $25, you get one best-available-seating ticket to Hartford Stage's performance of The Crucible on Sunday, September 4, at 7:30 p.m. (up to a $61.50 value).

The lauded resident theater Hartford Stage serves up a diverse collection of modern and classic dramatic pieces each season, backed by a battalion of talented actors and professional-quality production values. Making its Hartford Stage debut, Arthur Miller’s gripping parable ¬The Crucible casts an apprehensive spell while making audiences squeeze the circulation out of their armrests. Winner of the 1953 Tony Award for Best Play, The Crucible spins a yarn about meddling teens whose false accusations of witchcraft balloon into hysteria, as pious neighbors turn into bloodthirsty buffoons and the town drowns in paranoia. Sometimes viewed as an allegory for Arthur Miller’s misadventures with HUAC, or as a metaphor about Marilyn Monroe’s table manners, The Crucible remains one of modern theater’s most important potboilers due to its unflinching insight into mankind’s basest instincts, as well as the valuable lesson that witch trials should require polygraphs.