THEATER REVEIW:

When South Coast Repertory’s Hisa Takakuwa, director of the Theater Conservatory’s Teen Players, took on this season’s crop of young actors, her stated mission was to “get outside of their heads and out of their comfort zones.”

What better way than to select a play dealing with something native-born Southern Californians had only heard of, vaguely — snow days, those occasions in the northeastern part of the country when winter weather is severe enough close schools.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire’s “Snow Angel” fits the bill splendidly. It thrusts a group of teenagers in Deerpoint, Vt., into a no-school-today situation in which they are left to their own devices. But these devices must be recorded in individual journals as a snow day class assignment.

There’s the usual roll call of teen character types — the creative outsider (Jasmine Cheema), the shy youth (Akshay Sharma) aching to connect with his pretty classmate (Courtney Kato), the class bully (Chase Anderson-Shaw), the goofball (Grant Levy) and the just-licensed young driver (Sanaz Toossi) who’s a menace on wheels.

Into this mix comes another character, a stranger (Ellis Beardsley) who may or may not be real, or perhaps historically out of place. While she interacts most closely with Cheema’s Frida (named after the artist), she touches the lives of most of the others in one way or another with her electrifying presence.

The class assignment on snow day, therefore, is solving the mystery presented by the ethereal young lady who appears to have lost her home. Lindsay-Abaire mixes moments of high comedy and tense drama into the equation, and the South Coast Repertory teens respond quite nicely.

The unit setting of Sara Ryung Clement provides a chilly-looking backdrop for the indoor and outdoor activities, well lighted by Sara Broadhead.

The single moment of peril, though a bit artificial in construction, is effectively executed by Anderson-Shaw, revealing a sinister side of his character.

The youthful ensemble interacts quite well, a reflection of Takakuwa’s meticulous direction.

These players include Jordan Bellow, Chloe Mercado, Will Peterson, Alexandra McCue, Claire Swanson, Rachel Teague and Hillary Williams.

“Snow Angel” is in its last of two weekends in the Nicholas Studio. It’s the ideal setting for such an intimate, though well-populated, story.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: “Snow Angel”

WHEN: 7 p.m. Friday; 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday; and 1 and 4 p.m. Sunday

WHERE: South Coast Repertory Nicholas Studio, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

COST: $8

INFO: (714) 708-5555 or www.scr.org