“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
The sound erupts joyfully from the giant speakers flanking the Hollywood Bowl hatch shell on a recent overcast afternoon. The historic venue is waking up after an 18-month hibernation brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, which canceled an entire season for the first time in 98 years and accelerated the Los Angeles Philharmonic‘s plunge toward a staggering $105-million budget shortfall.
A few days before the Bowl’s reopening dress rehearsal in advance of Saturday’s free concert for essential workers, an unseen technician with a sense of humor is testing the sound system while about a dozen masked workers mop the stage and adjust the lights lodged in the giant halo hovering above.