“The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” a movie with a sometimes obsessive cult following, gets an unusual twist at Yale next week.

Directed by Valerie Steinberg ’09, a Yale stage production that draws on both the movie and the original play will be shown at Yale’s Off-Broadway Theater Halloween weekend. Though both hard-core fans and interested novices will enjoy the show, they should be prepared for a very different experience than what they are used to.

Steinberg’s “Rocky Horror” features an all-female cast, crew and band.

For those unfamiliar with the movie, it is Richard O’Brien’s 1975 version of an earlier London stage show. The movie retells the story of a newly engaged couple who stumbles upon a castle inhabited by transvestite aliens. The leader of the aliens, Dr. Frank N. Furter, creates, à la Frankenstein, a muscular, masculine manifestation of the perfect male, named Rocky. The movie draws on themes of homosexuality, transvestitism and gender identity.

This begs the question, how and why is the show done with an all-female cast?

Steinberg, who plays Dr. Frank N. Furter, says she’s wanted to do “Rocky Horror” this way since her junior year.

“[While the show was formulating in my mind], I joined an all-female a cappella group, an all-female comedy group and was on the Women’s Center board,” she said. “All this made me realize how awesome feminism is, and [how] people have a lot of misconceptions about it.”

The assistant director, Rachel Schiff ’10, said that there were two main reasons for doing the show with an all-female cast: to promote the presence of women in theater — particularly in light of the Dramat’s decision to have the male-dominated “The Full Monty” as their fall show — and to help create a space in which women can explore their gender identity.

“I wanted [this to be] a balance against the general trend that theater spaces are being dominated by men,” she said. “Also, in this show, women can freely express their gender identity; they can be women, or they can have a masculine take on their gender identity.”

But there were many difficulties in creating the show, Steinberg said. Practical changes included transposing male singing parts for female voices (though not too much, so that the audience would still feel as if men were singing), costume alterations and the use of fake penises and wigs.

Bianca Rodriguez ’11, the stage manager, said that certain elements of the set would be based on the movie, while deviating just enough for people to sense a difference in Steinberg’s show.

Steinberg said she made these changes while keeping in mind her goal of gender empowerment. She wanted the audience to be in a state of ambivalent consciousness. The role of Rocky, for example, would be a representation of both masculine and androgynous beauty.

One of the goals of this production is to create, as the original movie does, a sense of gender warping with the goal of achieving a gender-free society, Steinberg said.

“I wanted a plane of nebulous sexual empowerment without gender constraints,” she said. “But the element of gender is incorporated with the female cast.”

“The Rocky Horror Show” will run on Oct. 30 at 8 p.m., Oct. 31 at 7 and 10 p.m. and Nov. 1 at 8 p.m. For tickets, e-mail rockyhorroratyale@gmail.com.