The prolific Los Angeles performing arts high school that helped launch the careers of Josh Groban, Zoey Deutch, Haim and Phoebe Bridgers, among many more, is celebrating 40 years of fostering the arts the way only a program of its stature could: a concert at the Greek, emcee’d by Anthony Anderson and headlined by the likes of Ozomatli and Fitz and the Tantrums.
LACHSAPalooza, as the show is being called, is set for May 30, in honor of the eponymous Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. The event is part-anniversary, part-fundraiser, as LACHSA — a public, tuition-free school — looks not only to honor its past but secure its future, seeking an ambitious $2.5 million as public arts education continues to face mounting challenges across the country.
“This school is special,” Anderson, part of the school’s inaugural class of 1985, tells THR. “LACHSA helped me in my transformation to becoming an artist in a way I’d always envisioned since I was young.”
LACHSA is one of the most highly-regarded performing arts programs in the U.S. — up there with the likes of New York’s LaGuardia High or Michigan’s famed Interlochen Arts Camp — with a unique structure that puts focus on entertainment. Along with more traditional liberal arts courses, LACHSA students study in programs for dance, cinematic arts, music, theater and the visual arts among others. And thanks to its proximity to Hollywood, LACHSA has access to more upcoming talent than almost any other city on the planet.
