Pali High’s stadium burned. Their Hollywood Bowl graduation is bittersweet

It is among the most storied stages in Los Angeles. And on Wednesday afternoon, 740 graduating seniors from Palisades Charter High School got the chance to walk across it.

After a school year riven by the Palisades fire, which badly damaged their high school, students said they were honored to relocate their graduation to the Hollywood Bowl. Yet the venue — which has hosted the Beatles, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Aaron Copland — wasn’t their beloved Stadium by the Sea, long the site of commencement ceremonies.

But Pali High students and staff have learned to adjust. The January conflagration upended their lives, destroying the homes of many students, some of whom left the school. Some faculty and members of the school’s board of directors also lost houses.

Students initially returned to school online and later resumed in-person classes at a Santa Monica building that formerly housed a Sears. After months of making do, the seniors’ graduation ceremony on a stage reserved for stars served as a capstone, illustrating their resilience.

Ahead of the ceremony, senior Cash Allen said it was “bittersweet” to graduate at the Bowl instead the Stadium by the Sea, where he played for Pali’s football team.

“There’s just been so many memories — so not being able to finish out the four years of high school on that field is definitely sad,” Allen said. “But I think everyone also is grateful that we get the opportunity to walk at the Hollywood Bowl.”

“I can’t even imagine the adversity you faced — obviously the fires in January that brought us here,” said Steve Kerr, coach of the Golden State Warriors, a Pali alumnus who spoke at the graduation. “Although this is a pretty nice alternative.”

With graduates filling the high-end box seats, the ceremony featured remarks from several students and a videotaped message from Gov. Gavin Newsom. He thanked the students and urged them on, saying, “The future is not just something to experience, it is something to manifest.”

Showbiz speaker Billy Crystal, a longtime Palisades resident whose home burned down in January, joked about the students wrapping up the school year in an “abandoned Sears building” where he “once bought a washer-dryer.”

Turning to a more serious note, Crystal said the Palisades fire, for all of its “chaos and tragedy,” offered the students important life lessons: “Out of pain comes growth; out of loss comes wins; out of despair comes joy.”

Valedictorian Annalisa Hurd recalled how she had once been so certain about the future. But now she understands that “unexpected” turns weren’t “necessarily a downside.”

“Sometimes being laser-focused on only one route means we miss out on the other ones that may be faster, more scenic, or take us to a completely new destination entirely,” she said.

Principal Pamela Magee said administrators talked to venues across L.A. Among those on the list was the Bowl, which is owned by L.A. County and operated by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

As word of Pali’s interest traveled, Magee said, the Philharmonic’s board of directors learned of the school’s situation. The organization offered to “gift” its time at the Bowl to the high school, she said.

“The people that we spoke with, ultimately, were folks at the Bowl who do the permits and the leases,” Magee said. “They talked with others who said, ‘We want to do this for your school.’”

Magee said the school paid only a “small usage fee” for the venue. “For what the normal rental would be, this is a gift,” she said.

Other parts of the program came together organically, with Nick Melvoin, a Los Angeles school board member, helping secure some of the speakers, including Crystal.

“People were trying to make it work,” said Melvoin, who spoke at the commencement, joking in his speech that the Bowl could be dubbed “Pali East.”

Nancy Fracchiolla, Pali’s theater teacher who has long produced the school’s graduation event, said the ceremony carried extra meaning for her. Fracchiolla lost her home in the fire, and she is retiring after 13 years at the school.

The Bowl made for a thrilling send-off for Fracchiolla — even if it was a discombobulating change.

“It was a little daunting,” she said. “Because it was almost like I thought: ‘Oh, it’s my last year. I’ve got this graduation thing locked and loaded. Nope, you don’t. You really don’t!’ ”

The ceremony proceeded with the usual traditions: student musical performances, an array of speakers extolling the graduates, the calling of names.

Some families of graduates were content to call the celebration “normal.”

“I think that they’re feeling just like any other high school graduating class, which is — with everything that the majority of these kids have been through — the most beautiful thing they can have,” said Isabelle Rust, the sister of two graduates.

Guests’ time to soak up the atmosphere of the picturesque venue was limited.

Fracchiolla said she was told by Bowl officials that the graduation attendees needed to vacate quickly as staff there needed to prepare for a Thursday concert by soul singer Leon Bridges.

“They said, ‘Just make sure you tell your seniors to take their photos beforehand, because when they leave graduation, there’s going to be a different thing on the marquee,’” she said.

Rashad Rhodes, assistant coach of Pali High’s junior varsity football team and father of a graduate, said seeing the school community reunite for the celebration was surreal — and proof of the motto “Pali Strong.” The graduation, he said, “shows that people are here to stay.”

Allen, the senior, said his middle school graduation was held at Pali’s football field in 2021 because the outdoor venue allowed for a socially distanced event during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, he’s weathered two commencements buffeted by change.

“This class has been through more than most,” he said.

And finally, like seniors everywhere, the graduates tossed their mortarboards into the air and the crowd cheered for the Pali High Class of 2025.

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