Amelia Earhart is an elusive, inspiring and partly tragic figure. She was a daredevil, a pioneering aviatrix, a stubborn woman who wanted to live life to its fullest, and representative of that breed of women who push society forward just by being themselves.

Of course, her legacy is forever defined by the great mystery surrounding her death. Although that mystery is probably no more mysterious than running out of gas and falling from the sky into the ocean, it was as dramatic as her life. And it is her life that the Seem-To-Be Players’ production of “Amelia Earhart: First Lady of Flight” celebrated in its productions at the Lawrence Arts Center over the weekend.

The children’s play, written and directed by Ric Averill, imagines Earhart’s story told on a 1940s radio show in a “This-is-Your-Life” montage of important figures from her life. With Jane Elliot as Earhart and Matt Rapport, Joseph Serrano and Jessiee Datino taking on several important figures in Earhart’s life, Averill has created a fast-paced bio-drama that relies on historical data from Earhart’s biography as well as transcripts from interviews that allow Averill to stop the action for an occasionally pithy quotation from Earhart herself. Dominated by a wonderful mock airplane with a 16-foot wingspan, Jon Cupit’s set design is uniquely formulated to facilitate the fast-paced production.

The actors succeed in portraying a variety of characters, switching with lightning speed among them with the addition of a single prop or piece of clothing. It’s a clever device that certainly keeps the attention of a young audience. It does create challenges for the actor, however. While it seems obvious that these characters are going to suffer some dimensional loss, there is a danger that in an effort to make clear distinctions among them, some of them can become caricature, played for easy laughs. However, there are some touchingly human moments at times, especially between Elliot and Rapport as Earhart’s husband, George Putnam.

It is difficult to get a clear picture even of Earhart herself. There is so much about her which is promotion – some of it self-generated, some of it media-inspired. Despite the mounds of data about her, she is like so many public and historic figures: The real person gets lost in the hype. Averill has succeeded in giving her some dimension, offering anecdotes about her that help us see the real person. What we discover is that Earhart was less interested in advancing political or social ideas, and more interested in trying for the new, different and sometimes dangerous. Out of such persons, heroes can be made; and in their wake, change can occur.

Although adults might wish for a bit more complexity in characters and subtlety in performance, the production clearly appeals to children and will perhaps inspire them to discover more about this fascinating woman whose exploits performed largely “for the fun of it” helped catapult her into the record books and into American history.