Who We Are

BEGINNERS

KRISTA SMITH is a story alchemist. She guides creative transformation through playful embodiment, and re-imagines walls as doors to greater connection with love, aliveness and awe.

Her first classroom for this craft was the woods of her childhood and the pure state of being they inspired. Later she dedicated herself to more serious revelry, earning theatre degrees at both Boston University and the New School.

In Krista's twenty-five years as an actor, theatre maker and teacher, her passion for the artistic process as a field for consciousness led to collaborations with many experimental pioneers: Adrienne Kennedy, Joseph Chaikin and Arthur Penn.

Every wall is a door. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
At the Actors Studio, Mr. Penn directed Krista in a rare two-year, improvisational rehearsal process that required surrender beyond knowing. This training in radical presence ignited Krista's calling to clear pathways to a common field of heart.

She founded Visible Theatre in 2000, and during 11 years of labs, retreats and original work, developed five True Story Projects, original sacred storytelling that embraced the totality of being human and connected people to their shared humanity. Her visionary work has been documented in Theatre Journal, The New York Times, Uptown Downtown, Political Affairs, and Lit Drift amongst others.

In 2006, she joined the theatre faculty at Johns Hopkins University to support their mission of humanizing future leaders through conscious expression and fun. Krista has 20 years experience in mind-body modalities, and is in her fourth year of experiential shamanic studies with a master Peruvian shaman and Australian tantrika.

Living once again in the woods, she continues learning with her most beloved teachers, her husband, Michael, their three young children and an ever-exuberant dog, Frog.

Krista guides private sessions, retreats, and larger group experiences, often singing with Hearthfire's cross-disciplinary ensemble, One River.

MICHAEL QUATTRONE is a singer, songwriter and seeker whose greatest curiosity and most profound learning are sparked at the threshold between inner life and outward expression. By honoring his journey in music and poetry, and sharing his passion for the creative process, Michael encourages others to raise their voices, express their gratitude, and live in harmony.

Michael's background in performance and theatre includes a degree from Northwestern University and training from the best master teachers in New York City. His exposure to the innovative rehearsal process of Arthur Penn led to eleven years with Visible Theatre, where, as an actor, teacher and producer, he witnessed and helped catalyze the courageous growth of a diverse company of actors and writers dedicated to authentic presence and spontaneity.

Each of us is an artist of our days;
the greater our integrity and awareness,
the more original and creative our
time will become. ~John O' Donohue
On the visiting faculty of the Theatre Arts and Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University, Michael developed a curriculum for his class on the history of modern theatre and drama to support Director John Astin's mission for that program: to foster humanity, compassion and imagination in future leaders of the world.

Michael's study and practice of poetry include a fellowship and Masters degree from the New School, many publications, including an award-winning chapbook, Rhinoceroses, and four years as a curator of the KGB Poetry series in Greenwich Village, during which time he hosted more than one hundred emerging and established poets who shared their poetry before an intimate audience at a legendary venue.

Michael's twenty-year practice of singing and writing songs has been a crucible for personal discovery and devotion. To share that practice more widely, he performs with Hearthfire's cross-disciplinary ensemble, One River.

Most vital to his work with Hearthfire is Michael's experience as co-creator and father of a family of five. Ongoing conversations with his ancestors, his wife, Krista, and his children teach Michael about what it means to carry forward a meaningful legacy, participate fully in the human family, and how to create a home.

"Children are instruments of pure expression," he says. "They are the truest beginners—living proof that the highest calling in life is to be one's self. Children need not be actors to take courageous action, or singers to sing their songs."

STEWARDS

JACK ALGIERE was born and raised in southern Rhode Island on a family homestead. Exposed to the depth of nature and music at a young age, he has continued to maintain his practice in these fields. As a young naturalist, he worked as a park ranger in RI State Park and volunteer in Costa Rica, and began to work as a greenhouse grower and vegetable farmer.

Finding relationship to the natural system in this work, he developed organic, ecological and biodynamic practices to complement his philosophy. During this time, Jack continued to study and perform as a drummer and percussionist through a variety of classical and jazz ensembles. After graduating from the University of Rhode Island with a degree in plant science and horticulture, he continued with his wife and partner Shannon to develop various sustained agricultural projects in Colorado, California and Connecticut. As agriculture absorbed his life, the music became a mode of personal expression.

Jack and Shannon moved to New York in 2003 to develop and manage the farm system at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture including greenhouse, field crops, flower and herb production and natural system management. This environment has allowed Jack to expand the development of his practice and share the work with others through various forms of training, apprenticeship and volunteer opportunities, as well as public awareness concerning the health of our community and food system. He and Shannon have two young sons, Sedge and Ojiah.

After many years as an ecologically-minded farmer, educator and husband, he continues to develop this holistic approach to life and work through related family, community and artisanal activities.

SHANNON ALGIERE brings her earth element to the Hearthfire as an herbalist in the Wise Woman tradition, with 16 years of experience in organic gardening and community building through food and farming.

She brings her fire to the hearth with her connection to drumming and lifelong training in dance. Her study of traditions in weaving and spinning fiber is translated into the gift of movement and fluidity throughout group space.

She brings her air to the hearth with her love of yoga, and daily practice of mindfully mothering her two beautiful children. Shannon also brings her experience of more than 15 years in a loving partnership with Jack, and with this the co-creative process of intimacy within the sacred and the mundane.

Shannon's spirit is warmed by the sharing at Hearthfire, as we acknowledge and discover the interconnected way that we may walk our dream visions.

CHRISTOPHER REED is in hot pursuit of being fully alive on the sacred earth, day by day, and devotes himself to learning and teaching how to walk with gratitude for all that life, and the wonders and rhythms of nature, have to offer. He is the co-founder of Jersey City Lacrosse, a non-profit, youth sports organization committed to enriching and nurturing the lives of boys and girls through experiences of personal growth, community, and alternatives to consumer culture and mass media, while teaching and honoring the Native American origins of the great game of lacrosse.

Christopher's journey of heart opening includes twenty years as an actor, which took him to London for classical training and to New York City for an MFA. He appeared in many commercials, plays and independent films, but found deepest satisfaction with Visible Theatre, where his intention to embody his vitality on stage was met with an open-minded approach and fierce commitment to the creative process.

Christopher's work as a mentor began with a life-changing initiation in the Catskill Mountains with Richard Rohr and Males As Learners and Elders, and has deepened and blossomed over the course of two intensive rites of passage with the Hero's Journey Foundation in West Virginia.

Christopher is grateful for his wife and partner of twenty years, their creation of a life and home together, and for their three children, who are beautiful, soulful and wise companions.