Anyone who has had the opportunity to work at the EST, Ensemble Studio Theater, knows it to be a venue of new young writers, actors and directors. And its One Act Play Festival is a particularly robust period of creativity. However, anyone who has worked at the EST also knows it is run on a shoestring budget.
Ripples In The Pond is about an old school first generation Japanese businessman who is visited by a young Japanese-American IRS agent. The Costume Designer put me in a 3-button suit(my own)and wingtip dress shoes. At the costume fitting she said the good news was that she was able to find the right brown color wingtip in EST’s vast wardrobe collection. The bad news was that they were a size and a half too big. I tried them on and they felt like clown shoes. She also said the other news is that I would have to share the shoes with another actor. But that wouldn’t be a problem she assured me because he was in the evening’s second one-act play and I was in the fifth and last so there would be plenty of time to get me the shoes. But I insisted the too big shoes would be a problem because my feet were sliding around inside and on several occasions in the play I had to make quick movements. She assured me everything would be fine.
But during rehearsals my feet did slide around so I kept reminding her of my discomfort and the need for correct sized shoes. She said she would try in a kind of patronizing way. However, on the first night of dress rehearsals the problem magically disappeared. It was like fate had intervened. Because by the time I got the pair of wingtips in my dressing room from the previous actor the insides of the shoes were still moist. No sliding. Snug as a bunny. Wardrobe provided me with a fresh pair of socks for every performance. A shoe-string budget solution.
