Hanford Insider: Hanford Multicultural Theater

A theater can be a building—or a beacon. We sit down with volunteer tech lead and musician Ted Hillman to reveal how Hanford Multicultural Theater Company turned a small downtown space into a living hub for acting, improv, comedy, puppetry, and a fast-growing music scene. From the company’s early nomadic years to its permanent home on North Douty Street, Ted shares how one simple idea—the Jam Lab—helped break the “no scene here” myth by removing barriers and inviting musicians to create together on the spot.

You’ll hear how providing a backline drum kit and reliable sound turned an open mic into a collaborative improv night where strangers become bandmates, teens find mentors, and working artists connect with players for paid gigs. We dig into the power of improv to spark trust, why all-ages participation builds a resilient arts community, and how clear, consistent programming—from acting classes to marionette theater—brings more people downtown. Along the way, we round up city council highlights, including a million-dollar Urban Forest Master Plan grant, groundwater planning, and a proposed e-mobility ordinance, plus a full sports update with playoff seeds, upsets, and next matchups across basketball and soccer.

This episode is a playbook for growing culture at street level: start with access, remove friction, and welcome everyone from first-timers to seasoned pros. If you’re local, you’ll leave with concrete dates, links, and ideas. If you’re listening from another city, you’ll hear a model worth borrowing—one stage, many voices, real momentum.

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, leave a review, and share this with a friend who needs a stage—or a reason to start. Got an event, score, or story we should feature? Email HanfordInsider@gmail.com and let’s get it on the calendar.

You can find the Hanford Insider at www.hanfordinsider.com and on social media at @hanfordinsider
Thank you for supporting the show!

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & What’s Ahead
• 1:00 City Council Preview & Agenda Highlights
• 1:41 Community Events Calendar
• 3:04 Meet Ted Hillman
• 3:23 Theater Origins & New Home
• 4:05 Ted’s Path Into The Arts
• 6:40 Volunteering Into Tech Direction
• 9:06 Building A Music Scene With Jam Lab
• 11:15 Collaborative Improv For Musicians
• 13:22 Connecting Players To Paid Gigs
• 14:55 Creativity At Any Age
• 16:10 Upcoming Marionette Premiere
• 17:10 Sports Roundup: Playoffs & Results
• 19:53 Closing Notes & How To Support

Transcript

Welcome & What’s Ahead

SPEAKER_01 0:00

On this episode of The Hanford Insider, we'll get a peek behind the curtains of the Hanford Multicultural Theater Company with Ted Hillman. Rob will give you a look at some of this week's community events, and I'll be back with your sports report.

City Council Preview & Agenda Highlights

Community Events Calendar

Meet Ted Hillman

Theater Origins & New Home

Ted’s Path Into The Arts

SPEAKER_02 0:49

I'm your host, Rob Bentley, and whether it's history, culture, or what's happening downtown right now, you're officially in the know. So let's get started. The Hanford City Council will meet again on Tuesday, February 17th. In the afternoon study session, they'll be reviewing plans for the Urban Forest Master Plan grant of one million dollars. They'll also hear a report about the groundwater sustainability plan. In the general session at 7, the council members will act on the recommendation from city manager to hire a firm to look into the potential sites for a new public safety building and fire station. One of the more interesting items on the agenda is the new bicycle, e-bike, e-scooter, and e-skateboard ordnance. You can watch the council meeting live on the city's website. Let's take a look at this week's community calendar. On Thursday, February 19th, the Little Brick Theater will be holding their Musicians Jam Lab. The Carnegie Museum of Kings County's 2026 exhibition, Building Kings County, opens this Saturday, February 21st. Learn more at Carnegie Museum of Kingscounty.org. The Hanford Education Foundation Hall of Fame Gala is Saturday evening in the Hanford Civic Auditorium. Congratulations to all of those being honored. On Sunday, February 22nd, the Hanford Toy Anime Comic-Con will be held at the Hanford Fraternal Hall. If you have an event coming up, large or small, and you'd like some help getting the word out, let's work together. Send your information to HanfordInsider at gmail.com. Be sure to subscribe to my weekly newsletter to get a complete calendar of events. It's the most comprehensive community calendar available. And I thought it would be a great idea to continue on this track of talking to people who make a difference culturally in the community. And with me today is Ted Hillman from the Hanford Multicultural Theater Company. How are you doing, Ted? Doing pretty good, Rob. How are you? Doing great, Ted. So the Hanford Multicultural Theater, just for those of you who aren't aware, it kind of all began back in 2015, as I understand, and they were hopping from location to location as availability. You know, it's always hard when you're starting a startup nonprofit. You just kind of have to take the take the deals that you're given. And in 2022, they actually found their own spot in downtown Hanford at 119.5 North Dowdy Street in downtown Hanford. And the multicultural theater has acting classes, they have open mic nights, they have comedy nights, uh, just all kinds of activities for adults and children alike. And Ted, first of all, before we get into actual events, let's get a little bit. I like to, when I interview my guests, I like to get a little bit into their background, and especially when it's the arts, I'm a music teacher, so I can totally appreciate this. What got you invested in the arts here in town?

Volunteering Into Tech Direction

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Well, I was born and raised in Hanford, so I'm 39 years old. I was born in Hanford. Um, my mom's side of the family is from Hanford. So I was initially surprised when I found out about this theater, uh, because I found about it many years after it was already here. Like you said, it's been here uh, you know, probably about a decade, but I've only known about it for about three years. And because I drove by, I saw there were acting classes being held here. My daughter's expressed, she's expressed interest in wanting to pursue acting. So I was like, oh, maybe we'll go check it out. And to be honest, um, it maybe it was kind of an excuse for me too, because I wanted to get into the theater and get eyes on it, and that was like a way for me to like, okay, two two birds with one stone. I'll take my daughter to this acting class and I'll be able to go in the theater, take a look at it because I saw some pictures of like this place looks really cool. And um I play music, I'm a musician, and I also really love stand-up comedy, but I've never tried it uh because there's really not a place like this to explore that side of your creativity. So I've never tried stand-up comedy, I do play music. Um, so I kind of wanted to reach out to her at some point, and I just kind of procrastinated, you know. You know, I had a vision to reach out to her and, you know, try to plan a music concert or something here because it's such a good space, and they weren't really doing a lot of music. Uh but at the time when I took my daughter to that acting class, I reached out to her via email and I was like, hey, I really love your space. Uh I have a little bit of experience like uh working in the music industry as like a backline engineer or a guitar technician. So I have like a little bit of understanding of all this stuff. The lighting, not so much, but I know a lot of people in that area, and I could I can know I could do it. If you need help at any point, just reach out and let me know. And she told me at that time she didn't need help. She already had a great guy that was who's doing all that stuff, and I was like, okay, cool. And so that was that. And then I maybe came to a comedy show over the years. Uh, and I still tried to come to the theater and support it, but she actually reached out to me when the last tech director passed away. He passed away unexpectedly. Um, and she was looking through her emails and she was kind of like, Oh, there was one guy that said he could help us out. And then she dug up that email and then she reached out. And so it was kind of uh this kind of by happenstance. Um, yeah, I just reached out and I just offered my help. She didn't need my help at the time, and then she reached out to me. Um, and so I'm not really, I didn't grow up in drama, I didn't grow up in um theater, uh, just grew up a lot around a lot of musicians. And so when I came here and I started helping out with all the tech stuff, uh, I instantly kind of saw that there's a definite possibility for there to be music here. And growing up here, like I said, born and raised in Hanford, I know as a as a youth, there's not a lot of places, like I said, to express yourself creatively. So um, yeah, I just kind of mentioned it to her if she'd be interested in having more music and she was really open to it. And so that's kind of how I got involved with the theater. It all kind of happened by accident and uh just volunteering and doing what I can to help her because I want this theater to be successful. I want it to be here forever. Um, and so that that requires us to have volunteers that help out. Um, it's as a constant thing that we're trying to get more volunteers, whether it be to work at the door, to take you know tickets and stuff. Um, so I don't mind volunteering in this capacity at all. Um, even if it means I have to you know spend my weekends here sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

When I'm looking at the website calendar at HanfordMTC.com, what a website! There are so many events I see on here acting classes, improv classes. There's a Marionette show coming up uh at the beginning of March, um, different plays, uh open mic nights, comedy, there's so much. And I know your contribution to this is going to be some actual things from musicians. Uh, let's hear a little bit about that.

Building A Music Scene With Jam Lab

Collaborative Improv For Musicians

Connecting Players To Paid Gigs

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Yeah, so in addition to helping Sylvia out running the audio and the lights for any kind of other event she has, like you mentioned the comedy. So I do support in those other events, but the event that I'm kind of making my little baby, like my little creation to help bring musicians together, I call it the Jam Lab. And we've only had one of these events so far, and it's just kind of like I said, it's just like a creation that I made. I didn't even know if it would work or if it's something that's being done elsewhere, but the idea behind it is you know, there's a lot of musicians in Hanford and in the Central Valley, but this place is not known for having like a strong music scene. And I remember as a kid, you know, playing an instrument but not really having others to play with. So there's a lot of people that are very good and proficient at their instruments, but they just may maybe don't have another person that they know close enough to where they can play music with them. And so, like the idea is that it's kind of like a music open mic, a traditional open mic, except we have a drum kit there set up because that's a huge obstacle for uh specifically drummers. It's like such a a pain in the butt, for lack of a better word, to move those drums taken from place to place. So I have my own personal drum kit that I brought here and set up, and I don't mind people playing it. Um because what happened, and it did happen exactly like I was hoping. So last time there was just a bunch of different musicians. We put the ad out, we put an article in the paper, and they responded and they showed up. And what happened was you know, there were people who showed up that wanted to play together. There might have been a guitar player and a bass player, and they would sing some songs, like some Beatles songs or something. But then it was really beautiful because people that just met that day, like they would be like, Here, oh, you like this Beatles song, come up and sing with us, and so it was it's not a regular open mic because it's very collaborative and it's kind of improvisational, um, which is kind of perfect for this theater because um what Sylvia does a lot is teach the art of improv and you know, just being silly, just doing whatever comes to your mind, being creative. And so this is a format where musicians can do that and they could show up, not really have any material, play music with others, and um the the one of the beautiful things that happened is we got an email from a man named Caesar Betancourt, uh, and he attended our last event, and he's a blues player. Um and he he has gigs, he has gigs all over the valley, even in Los Angeles, but he can't get steady musicians to play with him, and it's like a situation where he can be making money and he can't find musicians, and other musicians can be making money. So we just want to have like a headquarters, a place where musicians can come together from all over the valley and kind of be that little hub or headquarters where you know they can meet other musicians, hopefully create bands, and we could have a more robust music scene. Um, not even just for um the younger generation, which that's what I really kind of look forward to, is when getting these kids when they're young, when they're interested in instruments, um, to get them playing with each other. But honestly, it's it's really beautiful to see different types of people from different uh generations, different backgrounds playing music together, um, and different from people from all different uh walks of life. So it's really beautiful to see people come together. Um, there's not a lot of social this is something I've been thinking about for a long time because there's not a lot of social outings that don't involve like just going to a bar or something like that. Do you know what I mean? And this is like a creative, and sure, this the theater does serve alcohol, but um this is a creative outlet, first and foremost, and it's a more like I see like a clubhouse, like um I could just tell the vibes that we had that night. Everyone really was so thankful. Like when I described what I wanted to do, they're like, Yes, like why doesn't that exist? And so Sylvia and uh the Hanford Multicultural Theater Company were kind enough to let this be kind of become a reality, it was very much an experiment, and it and it works. So I mentioned the man Caesar reached out to me and he's like, I need help finding musicians. Um, and so our next event, we're gonna kind of let everyone know hey, if anyone wants to uh join a band, Caesar, he has this blues band, he has his own material, he's ready to record his album. He just needs a couple solid musicians, and so we're gonna bring this up at the uh the next jam lab, and we're hoping he can leave with his band members. So, exactly what I was hoping would happen. It it did happen. So we're gonna keep pushing forward, and um, we may move the date of it to Thursdays going forward, but that's all subject to change. But the important thing is we want to just bring musicians together and we want to use our space for that to help facilitate that. Um, and kind of selfishly, I just remember as a kid not really having that space, and so wanting to bring that forward for the next generation, um, and also myself, too. Like I might start a band, you know, so it's never too late to do something like that, and that's a big thing behind the cedar, too. There's been people who are in their 70s who tried stand-up comedy for the first time. It's never too late, so that's another thing. Um, the theater is really opening up a lot of possibilities for local artists of every um, a lot of different disciplines and mediums. It's not just theater or puppetry, um, also music and stand-up comedy, storytelling, poetry. So it's a really cool place to be involved with. Um, I really enjoy with volunteering here.

Creativity At Any Age

SPEAKER_02 13:56

And this music teacher says, hear, here, appreciate. That's fantastic to have those kind of opportunities for no matter what age you are. I tell people that constantly, you know, people come up, you know, is it am I too old to learn how to play the piano? Or you know, is it too is it too early to start my child on piano lessons or guitar or something? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. So this is a great, great outlet for a lot of people. Uh, I promised Sylvia that I would hit up uh her event coming up in the beginning of March. Uh, she has written a Marionette Puppet show called The Bitter Couple, and that's going to debut on Saturday, March 7th, and it will be performed again the following day on the 8th, and then uh the week later, March 14th on Saturday. So uh you can go to the Hanford Multicultural Theater website at HanfordMTC.com and find out information about all of these events. Um, I'm just really impressed by the website presentation. Also have a very strong social media presence on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Um, you guys are doing it right. And uh, Ted, I just want to thank you for joining us on the show. And I really hope that people take advantage of this opportunity that they have in town to explore their creative side.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Thank you so much, Rob. Thank you for having me on.

Upcoming Marionette Premiere

Sports Roundup: Playoffs & Results

SPEAKER_01 15:23

And now it's time for Hanford Insider Sports with Eric Bentley. Seven different winter sports teams made the playoffs, four from Sierra Pacific and three from Hanford High, with four of those seven teams advancing to round two. So here's your round one playoff results. At 17 and 11 overall, which is a deceiving record given the quality of an on-league competition that they faced, the Sierra Pacific girls' basketball team earned a seven seed in the Division II playoff bracket and made easy work of their first round opponent, taking down 10-seed Liberty 73-38 last Friday. In a season built on tough tests, the Golden Bears will have yet another one this Wednesday, traveling to Centennial to take on the 28-2 overall and 8-0 league champion Golden Hawks in round two. The Sierra Pacific boys basketball team earned a 13-seed in the Division III playoff bracket, but saw their season come to a close last Friday at Fresno Christian, falling to the four-seed Eagles 82-44. The Golden Bears finished their roller coaster of the year with a 15-14 overall record and a third place league finish. The Hanford High Boys basketball team was also selected for playoffs, but before we get to the postseason, let's touch on the end of the regular season really quickly, because after taking down Lamore in the last game of the year, the Bullpups were scoreboard watching as Taler Union lost to Talarry Western in a double overtime thriller to force a three-way tie for first place in the WIL between Hanford High Lemore and Taler Union, meaning that the Bullpups can claim a WIL championship with a 13-17 overall record and a 7-3 mark in league play. That finish earned the Hanford High Boys a nine-seed in the Division II playoff bracket, where unfortunately for the Bullpups, they fell to eight-seed Sanger in a contest that came down to the wire, but saw the Apaches prevail 62-59. In soccer action, both Hanford High and Sierra Pacific saw their boys and girls soccer teams selected for postseason play. Let's start with the Bullpups, where the Hanford High girls' soccer team earned a two-seed in the Division II bracket, which meant that they got a first-round bye. After a 16-2-2 overall finish in the regular season and splitting the WIL title with Tularie Western after both finishing the year 9-1, the Bullpups will take on 10-seed Independence in round two on Tuesday at 6 P.M. after the Falcons upset seven-seed Passerobles in round one. The Hanford High boys' soccer team saw playoff action in the Division IV bracket as a 14-seed and are making the most of their postseason opportunity with an upset victory Saturday in round one. Tied at the end of regulation between the Bullpups and three-seed Frontier, the game went to penalty kicks where Hanford High edged out the Titans 4-3 to advance to second round action. The Bullpups opponent in round two will be Sanger West after the 11-seed Hornets upset six-seed Farmersville. The two, three, four, and six seeds in the Division IV bracket all lost their first round matchups. So if the Bullpups can keep the momentum going, the road to a section title might have gotten just a little bit easier. Over to Sierra Pacific Soccer, the girls, after a nine, eight, and five regular season, were selected as a three-seed in the Division IV playoff bracket and took down Orcut Academy three to one in their first round game on Friday. The Golden Bears will be at home again for their second round matchup, taking on eleven seed Morrow Bay after the Pirates upset six seed Washington Union in their round one game. That Tuesday playoff matchup set to kick off at six PM. And the Sierra Pacific Boys soccer team saw their season come to a close in round one of the Division IV playoffs as the ten seed Golden Bears fell to seven seed Lamore two to one. The Sierra Pacific Boys finish their season with a 10, 8-6 overall record and a Tri-County Sequoia League title. Next week we'll have score reports from those four teams still in contention for a section title, as well as our first baseball and softball updates. As always, if you have a score report or a team update from any level, you can let us know by emailing HanfordInsider at gmail.com. I'm Eric Bentley, and this has been your Hanford Insider Sports Report.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

And that wraps things up for this week's show. If you enjoyed this podcast and you'd like to show your support, you can go to buymeacoffee.com forward slash Hanford Insider to make a donation. If you'd like to join the Hanford Insider email list, stop on my website at HanfordInsider.com to sign up for updates. You'll also get an exclusive copy of my newsletter in your inbox each week. I also need your help getting the word out about the show by liking and sharing on social media, or like most people, just telling a friend. For more information about the show, you can find this podcast on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, and YouTube at Hanford Insider. If you have a show idea, be sure to email me at HanfordInsider at gmail.com and I'll look into it. Thanks for being part of the Hanford Insider Podcast family. Have a fantastic week.