In The Heart, the nine actors “portray a very difficult but cathartic 24-hour period,” said Drew Gehling, who plays a cardiothoracic surgeon. He's known for Broadway musicals like Waitress, & Juliet, and the upcoming Paddington.

Personal accomplishment: I got my Eagle Scout when I was 18 years old, and I had to give a speech in front of an entire student body about it, and I did not prepare at all.

Show (as a viewer): The minute the curtain comes up at the very beginning of the revival of 42nd Street in 2001. You see everybody tap dancing across the front of the stage.

Show (as a performer): Doing Titanic at Encores! two years ago. To be one of almost three dozen voices lined up across the front of the stage and just singing a Maury Yeston score at full volume to a theatre full of adoring fans, that gives you goosebumps.

NYC experience: That minute you walk outside at the end of a workday or a rehearsal day, and you realize that it's going to start raining any second, and you don't have an umbrella, and the subway station is two blocks away. That'll get you going real quick.

Musical theatre album: Little Shop of Horrors

Guilty pleasure: A really big espresso at 8 p.m.

“This is a tight 90-minute musical. There are no breaks,” said Heidi Blickenstaff, a Broadway veteran now playing a heart transplant recipient. “The idea is, you strap in.”

Personal accomplishment: When my husband and I were finally able to buy our house, my heart raced all day long when we were signing the papers.

Show (as a viewer): Spring Awakening on Broadway. You know you're a dork when lighting design and set design make your heart race, but there was a moment when that lighting design came into place, and I just loved it.

Show (as a performer): Doing Jagged Little Pill [on Broadway].

NYC experience: I live in the Catskills now. My New York City armor is off. So now, just walking in New York City makes my heart race.

Musical theatre album: Hamilton, The Light in the Piazza, Ragtime

Guilty pleasure: A really boss cup of coffee. Give me a really good flat white.

“The show feels like The Pitt with electronica music,” said Paradise Square Tony Award winner Joaquina Kalukango, who plays the surfer, Simon's, grieving and conflicted mother.

Personal accomplishment: Giving birth.

Show (as a viewer): Watching Audra McDonald singing “Rose’s Turn” [in Gypsy].

Show (as a performer): Playing Nelly O'Brien in Paradise Square for sure.

NYC experience: There used to be this club when I was in college that we would go to. It was all the way downtown. The train ride to the club was the best heart-racing experience ever. We were hyped.

Musical theatre album: Dreamgirls

Guilty pleasure: Eating Kit Kats after shows.

“Our show is not an immersive show, but the soundscape is,” said Jason Tam, whose credits include A Chorus Line and Be More Chill. In The Heart, he plays Simon's father. “People are going to feel enveloped.”

Personal accomplishment: Gardening. It grounds me, and I'm so proud. I'm very fortunate enough to rent a space that has a private back garden, and I'm so proud of the way I've shaped it. It’s my own little work of art.

Show (as a viewer): The original The Who’s Tommy. I was 10 years old and I sat in the front row. I didn't know musical theatre could sound like that.

Show (as a performer): Doing KPOP off Broadway. I got to pretend to be in a Korean boy band, and that made my heart 10 times bigger.

NYC experience: There was a City Streets moment where they shut down all the streets. I biked from the top of Manhattan down to the bottom. That made my heart race, but in a good way.

Musical theatre album: The Who’s Tommy, Once on This Island, Rent

Guilty pleasure: Matcha latte gelato, or some tea-flavored gelato, fills me with joy.

“We have our main character, but we also have many moments to support one another on stage,” said Lincoln Clauss, who primarily plays a transplant coordinator.

Personal accomplishment: I’m a big cook, so when I cook something and I give it to someone and they love it, that gets my heart racing. I feel very accomplished.

Show (as a viewer): I've seen The Lion King three times. It was the first show I ever saw. Love it.

Show (as a performer): Fly at the La Jolla Playhouse. I played Peter Pan and I flew. So every single time when I came down from the rafters, it was a literal heart-racing thing.

NYC experience: Taking the subway to Times Square.

Musical theatre album: Ragtime

Guilty pleasure: I love a homemade, warm chocolate chip cookie.

“It’s really, really cool to be doing an electronica musical,” said Bre Jackson, seen on Broadway in The Color Purple, Six, and MJ. In The Heart, she plays a kind nurse in the cardiac wing.

Personal accomplishment: Still living in New York City and being a working actress, praise the Lord.

Show (as a viewer): Lempicka, A Strange Loop, and Slave Play. Those three shows will never leave my brain.

Show (as a performer): [Playing] La Capitana in Giulia, and I would be remiss not to say being Queen Catherine of Aragon in Six.

NYC experience: The train this morning. The 30 minutes to get a shaken espresso. That got my heart rate up.

Musical theatre album: Jekyll & Hyde and In the Heights

Guilty pleasure: A fried potato. Period.

“The show is a true love letter to life and to the people that keep it going,” said Wren Rivera, who appeared on Broadway in Jagged Little Pill and now plays an organ donation coordinator in The Heart.

Personal accomplishment: I went to court to change my name. My name was not created as Wren, but it's here now, and that will forever live with me.

Show (as a viewer): MJ The Musical. I saw MJ back to back, night to night, because the whole "Thriller" sequence absolutely made me leave my body.

Show (as a performer): I most recently did Teeth: The Musical [off Broadway]. I loved getting to be a creature. That's going to be with me forever.

NYC experience: Lincoln Center puts on a lot of really great events during the fall and summertime — there’s silent discos.

Musical theatre album: Come From Away

Guilty pleasure: Staying up way too late. It's like a dare to myself.

“When I first listened to some of the music from this show, I was so excited,” said Max McKenna, who’s making their New York debut as Simon's DJ girlfriend. “It's unlike anything I've seen in theatre.”

Personal accomplishment: Booking this show.

Show (as a viewer): The Picture of Dorian Gray in Sydney, Australia.

Show (as a performer): Jagged Little Pill, playing Jo and doing “You Oughta Know.”

NYC experience: I've just moved here, and this is my New York debut, so that's probably going to be the most heart-pumping experience. But taking the subway every day, you have to gird your loins for what you're about to see and feel.

Musical theatre album: Legally Blonde and Next to Normal

Guilty pleasure: The Katseye song “Hooty Frutty.”

“It’s a very emotional story. There is tragedy, but there is humor because life is funny,” said Ian Eisendrath, who was the musical supervisor for two other Christopher Ashley-directed shows: Diana and Come From Away on Broadway.

Personal accomplishment: We have three kids and they’re still alive.

Show (as a viewer): Ragtime. I happened upon the second preview when I was 16, and I sat in the front row.

Show (as a creative): I got to work on Come From Away. That was a miraculous experience. I loved how it was a show about real people and real events and what it means to come together as a community.

NYC experience: We were at a show last year, and when we left, all of a sudden, the rain just came down. It was so bad we just decided to jump around in the puddles and splash each other. It was unreal. In the middle of Times Square.

Musical theatre album: Rent

The Heart is about “doctors and what they do. It's sexy,” said Anne Eisendrath. “There's an aliveness to it, and we really felt they needed a sexy soundtrack to what they do.”

Personal accomplishment: I married Ian.

Show (as a viewer): Oklahoma!, my very first Broadway show.

Show (as a creative): I went on tour with our three kids when Ian did Come From Away. We got to see the whole process come together.

NYC experience: I’m going back to [the 2002 revival of] Oklahoma! and seeing Patrick Wilson in the cornfields. I’d never seen theatre done at that level before.

Musical theatre album: The Phantom of the Opera

"The actors play multiple roles,” said Kait Kerrigan, who wrote the book for The Great Gatsby on Broadway. “They all embody the idea of the heart, the idea that we are all connected.”

Personal accomplishment: I made my Broadway debut with The Great Gatsby. Seeing the marquee for the first time totally got my heart racing.

Show (as a viewer): Sleep No More was the first time I had ever been in an immersive environment. It made me think, “Wow, I didn't know we could do that.”

Show (as a performer): The end of this show is one of the moments I am proudest of.

NYC experience: New York in the springtime when the pear trees are in bloom.

Musical theatre album: Ragtime

Guilty pleasure: I've got kids, so reading a book in the morning with nothing to do with a cup of coffee.

“We're telling the story of an organ transplant in a hospital setting to club music,” said Emmy Award winner Mandy Moore, who is making her NYC musical theatre debut with two back-to-back shows this fall: The Heart and Broadway's Dolly. “That's complex, but it’s told in a beautifully simple, efficient way.”

Personal accomplishment: Making La La Land. It was really hard and crazy, but also amazingly fun.

Show (as a viewer): My first time I went to the theatre, I saw Cats, and it changed my life. I was like, "I don't understand what this is, and I need to be a part of it."

Show (as a creative): Choreographing Taylor Swift's Eras Tour and opening night [of The Heart]. It’s my first go at theatre.

NYC experience: I’m very keen to find cool little boutique shops or a nice wine bar.

Musical theatre album: Les Misérables and Cats

Guilty pleasure: I love a Lush bath bomb.

Get The Heart tickets now.

Interview excerpts have been condensed and edited for length and clarity.

Bridget Gross contributed reporting for this story.