What goes on in the average mall dressing room? Kathryn McCarty considers the possibilities in her one act, The Fitting Room, making its San Francisco debut at the New Conservatory Theatre Center. McCarty also directs the piece, which began Aug. 9 and ends its scheduled run Sept. 10.

Cut down from its original two-act form which debuted in 1998, this slimmer Fitting Room features vignettes from the lives of the many different people searching for "meaning, truth and the perfect pair of jeans." Some of those seekers are a widower and his daughter looking for a prom dress, a business woman, a gay man and his best friend, an elderly couple trying to learn to play "by the rules," teenagers out for fun and an engaged couple on the brink of getting married.

McCarty, founder and artistic director of Galatean Players, made her playwriting debut with Defining Form in 1997. Since then, she wrote Henry Ever After and the one-act, Bread Baking Time, while bringing together four other Bay Area playwrights in creating a musical based on Charles Dickens' The Cricket on the Hearth. Four of her one-acts will premiere this summer at the Onstage Theatre Company's Off the Shelf and On Stage One Act Festival.

With over 54 characters, 300 costumes and 40 wigs to handle, The Fitting Room stars Katrina Baumgartner, Rachel Hauser, David Kelleher, Nicole Lungerhausen, Helen Means, Sheilah Morrison, Nikki Passeggi, Lacey Pawlowitz, Patricia Quinn, Dorothea Rastegar, Catherine Roloff and Don Tamblyn. Additional actors may be cast for the New Conservatory production.

Tickets are $15. The New Conservatory Theatre Center is located at 25 Van Ness Avenue near Market Street. For tickets, call (415) 861-8972. The New Conservatory Theatre Center is on the web at http://www.nctcsf.org. -- By Christine Ehren