ROCKPORT — Everyman Repertory Theatre's 'Forgotten Classics of the Stage' series continues with a rehearsed reading of Aphra Behn’s 1677 play ‘The Rover’ on Sunday, Aug. 18, at 2 p.m., at Pascal Hall, 86 Pascal Ave., Rockport.

This is the most famous play written by the first female playwright in Britain – The Rover, by Aphra Behn – a classic Restoration Comedy, about power, sex, money – by the woman who wrote the first play ever set in the U.S. (Oroonoko).

Having famously worked as a spy for Charles II against the Dutch, Behn lost her meagre income when the king refused to pay her. She turned to writing for an income. The Rover premiered in 1677 to great success, the play earned an extended run, enabling Behn to earn her living from it.

As Virginia Woolf said in an essay on Behn: “Jane Austen should have laid a wreath upon the grave of Fanny Burney, and George Eliot done homage to the robust shade of Eliza Carter—the valiant old woman who tied a bell to her bedstead in order that she might wake early and learn Greek. All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.”

The cast includes AnnMarie Lowerre, April Rejman, Beverly Scott, Jennifer Hodgson, Andrea Itkin, Dagney Ernest, Jan Zimmerman, Scott Anthony Smith, Paul Hodgson, Michael Amico, Ryan Jackson, and Joseph Cote.

This event is an open seating venue and donations will be accepted at the door.

“Your donation helps us keep professional theatre alive and well,” said Everyman, in a news release.

For more information please call (207) 236-0173.

The remainder of this series is dedicated to the memory of Dean Jorgenson.