Cast of Real Characters Found Aboard 70 Bus

Justin McNeil, left, and John Muller ride a crowded 70 bus. Their play about the 70 bus experience has its first performance tonight. It's free. (By Marvin Joseph -- The Washington Post)

The playwrights also were drawn to a Washington Post story in September about "Mr. Wonderful," a driver on the 70 who let homeless people sleep on his bus at night. McNeil recalled meeting Mr. Wonderful, Floyd Thurston, who still works for Metro.

The play has its own version of a "Mr. Wonderful," and the story covers the character's last day driving the route. It's more a comedy than a drama, with characters aplenty.

Last week, even amid rehearsals, McNeil and Muller kept tinkering with the story line. So they rode the bus to grab some last-minute material. They compared the experience to Mark Twain's traveling the Mississippi and writing "Huckleberry Finn." That's how they wound up at the bus stop with Hawkins, who was about to get back to work and head north. They joined her for the ride.

"Do you have any interesting stories?" Muller asked.

"I have lots," she told them, slapping her hand on her knee. "You should have been on the ride I just ended. On my bus, I just had an altercation."

It happened at Georgia Avenue and Peabody Street NW, she said. A woman got on with some bags from a thrift store and was shocked at how crowded the bus was. She started yelling, "Move! Move!" Another woman didn't like the attitude and started calling the noisy woman names.

"I thought it was going to go to blows," Hawkins said. "People get irritated when its hot."

The bus grumbled into Chinatown. A frowning man -- in a long blond wig -- circled the bus at Seventh and H streets NW. He didn't get on. But a scruffy-looking, bearded man in a black shirt did get aboard with a cellphone-shaped object attached to his ankle. He walked toward the back, announcing to everyone that he hadn't used marijuana in three days because he had to take a urine test at Walter Reed Army Medical Center that day.

McNeil and Muller didn't react. They had a similar scene in the play already. Not getting much material, they soon decided to call it a day.

"That was one of the most boring rides I've had in my life," Muller griped as he and McNeil walked into downtown Silver Spring. "That's not the 70."

As it turned out, McNeil and Muller might have given up too soon. They could have switched buses and caught another troop of riders in Silver Spring. A woman in a green business suit and high heels boarded the bus. A man smelling like alcohol, with ripped jeans and no shoes, followed her.

Another passenger, Cassandra Frazier, an office manager with tightly pulled back black hair, boarded the bus, sweat gleaming on her face.