New York City's Queens Company, the all-female troupe whose past works have included MacBeth and She Keeps Time, are staging a famous woman's work again with no men in the cast. This time, they take on the swaggering swordsman in Alphra Behn's The Rover, running March 2-25 at the Currican Theatre.

In The Rover, three women are searching for romance in Italy. Helena, bound for a nunnery, is looking for a little fun before her vows; Florinda, engaged to a wealthy suitor by her brother, promises to marry her true love, Belville and Angelica, a high-priced call girl, falls in love. When these ladies unleash themselves on Carnival Naples, they run into the English Cavaliers and their leader, the Rover Willmore, and challenge the man to a duel of desire.

Behn wrote The Rover in 1678, becoming England's first professional female playwright (a change from her last job - spying for the King). After Dryden she was the most prolific stage writer of the Restoration. Her stage works include The Forced Marriage, Sir Patient Fancy, The Feigned Courtesans and The Emperor of the Moon, although she is more known today for her prose work "Oroonoko." Behn was buried in Westminster Abbey.

The Rover features Virginia Baeta, Shelia Lynn Buckley, Jacqueline Gregg, Vanessa Hidary, Valentina McKenzie, Toks Olagundoye, Maureen Porter, Jill Repplinger, c.c. seymour [sic], Ami Shukla, Hope Singsen and DeeAnn Weir.

Tickets are $15. The Currican Theatre is located at 154 West 29th Street. For reservations, call (212) 206-1515. — By Christine Ehren