By Della Hasselle
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER EAST SIDE — It's a scene not unfamiliar to many New Yorkers: A 32-year-old wannabe actress goes over her lines and warms up her voice while waiting underground for a subway to take her to her audition.
She's humming, opening and closing her mouth in twisted contortions as commuters look on with disdain. She ignores them, willing to put up with the humiliation in the hopes that she can escape her slave-wage, soul-sucking temp job at a downtown financial firm for the big stage.
The setting for this subway stop is actually a backdrop at the 59E59 Theater, where a new musical "In Transit", inspired by the sights and sounds and stories of the New York City train system, opened this week.
The musical follows 45 characters through chance encounters and lively commutes as they battle city elements to reveal the awe, frustration and excitement of what it means to be a New Yorker.
Beat-boxer Boxman, played by Chesney Snow, keeps the beat as the group's only percussion, as the rest of the actors sing in six-part harmonies on quintessential New York topics like high rents and even higher aspirations, broken-down trains and exorbitant drink prices.
Alto actress Celise Henderson, who plays an unaccommodating subway clerk, said Wednesday in Times Square that the a cappella factor makes the performance a challenge.
"The most difficult part is staying in tune, for sure," Henderson said. "It's really hard with the timing. But it's a great silhouette moment of what New York is like."
Kristen Anderson-Lopez, who co-wrote the show with Sara Wordsworth, James-Allen Ford and Russ Kaplan, admitted Wednesday that much of the musical is simply based on life experience.
"We laugh at pain, we laugh at pain," said Anderson-Lopez, who, like the character Jane, was once an aspiring actress working a temp job with no health insurance.
"In New York, everyone has a song and a story," said Sara Wordsworth. "Some happen to interact."
"In Transit" will play at 59E59, on 59th St. between Park and Madison, until Oct. 30.
