For a girl growing up in the 1960s with an inquisitive bent and a penchant for mystery, role models were pretty slim.

	Drew Yenchak, Lighthouse Photography Robin Abramson as Maura Conlon in "FBI Girl." Click photo for larger image. FBI Girl Where: Playhouse Rep at Point Park University Pittsburgh Playhouse, 222 Craft Ave., Oakland. When: Through June 10; Wed-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun 2 p.m Tickets: $18-22;412-621-4445.

There was Nancy Drew, of course, and Maura Conlon-McIvor duly chronicles devouring those stories in her memoir "FBI Girl: How I Learned to Crack My Father's Code." But it's Conlon's FBI agent father who serves both as her ideal detective and the primary mystery to solve.

Now adapted for the stage by Tammy Ryan, "FBI Girl" has its world premiere at Pittsburgh Playhouse Repertory Company. It's a coming-of-age story, moving, sentimental and very funny, that captures its period and speaks resonant volumes about Irish-Catholic families, connections with the church, life in Catholic school and life with a developmentally disabled sibling.

More essentially, it gives voice to every smart, shy girl who saw the mystery of the world and dreamed herself into its center.

Ryan perfectly depicts that essence, telling Conlon-McIvor's story simply and honestly, staying basically true to the text. Her adaptation takes the shape of a memory play, making Maura both narrator and character in her own story. I don't love the technique, because it's novelistic, lacking inherently in drama.

But luckily, Robin Abramson, who plays Maura, infuses every moment with energy, so even these brief bursts of monologue and direct audience address sizzle. Although narrator Maura speaks with the obvious perception of adult hindsight, director Sheila McKenna wisely keeps her a sly, smart, witty, observant girl, aching to understand and be understood.

Abramson skillfully balances shy adolescent and feisty detective-wannabe to create a character you can't help but love, root for and identify with.

Ryan's adaptation is at its best when she enters Maura's fantasy life. On stage, Maura's daydream conversation with the Virgin Mary comes dramatically to life when the statue of Mary does the same. Maura's fondness for rewriting scenes in her life the way she wishes they'd occurred allows them to mingle side by side with her life as experienced.

This tactic plays up the humor of Conlon-McIvor's story, allowing the audience to commiserate with Maura over such oppositions in her life as a loving father whose silence weighs down the family and her adolescent desires both to be popular and not to call attention to herself.

Director McKenna plays up Maura's obsession with mysteries and crime with an occasional nod to hard-boiled detective fiction. A camera click and flash introduce characters, turning entrances into freeze frames. Even the program uses mug shots instead of head shots. Michael Essad's set features words scrawled over the walls, a constant reminder of the "code" Maura tries to crack.

But that's only one layer of "FBI Girl" which, at its heart, is a love story -- Conlon-McIvor's love for her family, especially her father and brother, Joey. who has Down syndrome Engaging performances by John Amplas and Mark Tinkey make this love real and vivid. Amplas infuses the stoic Mr. Conlon with the conflict between his love for his family and his understanding of what it then meant to be a man. Tinkey plays Joey with quiet understatement, allowing his joyous personality to shine.

The rest of the ensemble plays multiple roles. Some momentarily devolve into caricature, as when Joel Ripka and Theo Allyn play Maura's very small siblings. There's humor here, though, and other roles are more thoroughly constructed, like Ripka's warm Coach Bill, the laid-back hippie who leads Maura's softball team, and Allyn's snarky Adele Romero, the girl everyone hated but wanted to be in junior high.

Nancy Bach primarily plays Maura's mother, Mary, kind, long-suffering and with a strong and resolute spirit. She also takes a turn as Elizabeth Dupont, the Popular Girl who thinks she's better than everyone else and, frustratingly, in some way only teenage girls understand, is.

Michael Fuller is a gentle and warmhearted Father Jack, Maura's liberal New York uncle. Mary Rawson plays many of the funniest roles. Several nuns are nicely differentiated, with perhaps the most hysterical being the ultra-stern Mother Perennial. Rawson is also the spirited and opinionated no-nonsense Gramma Molly, complete with Irish brogue.

"FBI Girl" is a rich and multifaceted story, proving that a mystery can be teased apart by skilled writers such as Ryan and Conlon-McIvor, even more ably than by a crack FBI detective.