As the opening-night audience for Kumu Kahua Theatre’s production of “Joker” returned to their seats for the beginning of the second act Aug. 27, Donna Blanchard, managing director of the organization, had an exciting new project on her to-do list. People had been asking her during intermission if they could buy T-shirts like the one worn by one of the characters in the show. A lot of people.

It was the first time a costume piece had attracted such instant response at Kumu Kahua.

“I was a little surprised,” Blanchard said recently. “So many of them asked for them that we decided to have some made.”

To put the T-shirt in context, “Joker” takes place in a Chinese restaurant in downtown Honolulu in 2013 when the campaign to change the legal definition of marriage from the traditional “one man, one woman” to two people of any combination of genders was gaining momentum.

One of the restaurant’s owners sees a marketing opportunity and has the restaurant’s male waiters wear tight pink T-shirts.

Costume designer Jonathan Reyn saw an opportunity to do something unique and creative with the basic pink T-shirt.

“The script calls for a gay pride T-shirt to be used as a work uniform for the Chinese restaurant, and (director) Wil (Kahele) allowed me license to design my own pride shirt for the show,” Reyn says. “Instead of using a typical pride design with a rainbow flag, I chose to go with a visual pun that would be easy to understand in the quick moment that the shirt was used.”

Reyn’s design has a rice bowl filled with rice. The rice is in the rainbow colors of the gay pride flag, and under the bowl is the phrase “Pride Rice.”

Blanchard was one of the first people to order a “Pride Rice” T-shirt.

“Just the idea itself, ‘Pride Rice,’ is very cute, it’s a cute design, and it’s a very cool thing to be supporting right now,” she says. “It’s supporting the theater as well as our community.”

The Kumu Kahua Pride Rice T-shirt is available for $20 at www.tfund.com/KumuKahua.

“Joker” continues Oct. 1-4.