Our Name

To us, good performance begins with good writing. Our performances begin with solid scripts and our school programs all have creative writing at their roots. The importance of writing is reflected in our name.

ATTIC SALT (n): Particularly acute, graceful, biting wit, as embodied in the satirical comedies of Aristophanes.
– The Dictionary of Classical, Biblical, & Literary Allusions
by A. H. Lass, D. Kiremidjian and R. M. Goldstein

Our Mission

Attic Salt is a not-for-profit company that produces theater for adult and family audiences and implements long-term residencies in schools. Whether creating original works, producing the works of others, or creating curriculum, our focus is always on building up from a solid foundation of especially strong writing.  Additionally, in our work with children, our goal is always to remind kids that creativity begins with yourself and theater is something that you can do at home.

Who We Are

Marci Bernstein
Executive Director

Marci brings her background in education and theater to Attic Salt after many years of working as an actor, musician and teacher in New York City. She has spent many years in the classroom developing programs that balance education basics with the arts. She’s traveled the country as part of a singing duo for children and has co-authored three books for Scholastic, Inc. with Jeff Catanese. These days she can be found teaching residencies through the LEAF program, directing Youth Production Classes at Asheville Community Theatre and directing and producing Attic Salt’s Mainstage shows.

Jeff Catanese
Artistic Director

Jeff is a director, writer and actor and has directed several productions in New York and regionally. As an actor he has performed in over fifty theatrical productions and has had the pleasure of working with many of his favorite film directors. His plays have been performed all around New York including at the Duffy Theatre, Chicago City Limits and Pulse Ensemble Theatre. Jeff is co-author with Marci (Appelbaum) Bernstein of three drama/education books, published by Scholastic. He teaches both acting and improvisation to people of all ages.

Our Board of Directors

Gabby Bailey

Bio to come

Katherine DeVos Devine

Katherine de Vos Devine is the founder of Cauldron, an Asheville-based arts incubator dedicated to helping visual artists build business skills. Katherine is the former executive director of Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center. She previously worked at Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft LLP, where she assisted public charities and private foundations with the processes of organization, incorporation, and tax exemption.   Katherine earned her Ph.D. in Art History and Visual Culture at Duke University. She received her M.A. and B.A. in Art History from Duke and J.D. from the Duke University School of Law.

Lara Hollaway

Lara got her start in professional theatre at age 11 when she was chosen out of several hundred little girls as the understudy to Annie with Fannie Flagg and Robert Alda in Birmingham, Alabama.  She has been performing in plays and musicals from coast to coast ever since, with a bit of choreographing and directing on the side.
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Lara has only recently relocated to the Asheville area, but has fallen in love with the mountains and the theatre community in this beautiful, artistic, and expanding city. ​

Ellen Pappas

Ellen hails from New York City where she studied theatre in high school and college. She spent years working full-time in a law firm, singing in a rock n' roll band and studying acting and musical theatre at HB Studio.
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Nowadays, she is half of the duo The Good Gurls, where she plays guitar and mandolin and sings her heart out, whipping out those harmonies and descants.  She's also regularly performing, producing and directing for Asheville's vibrant theatre community.​

Laura Podraza

Laura Podraza is a veteran teacher with Buncombe County Schools. She has taught most of her career at Bell Elementary in second and third grade. She and her husband, Erik, have lived in Asheville for over 23 years. Laura has two children who have been blessed with wonderful opportunities in the arts in school as well as our community. Even though Laura was never a Girl Scout as a child, she has been a leader for the past 14 years. Providing young people with the tools they need to be strong, confident leaders is very important to her. Watching her son develop as a result of his theatre experiences, on and off stage, is one way that she ended up working with Marci Bernstein and Jeff Catanese and Attic Salt Theatre Company.​

Janice Schreiber

Passionate about theatre since childhood, Janice has worked as a director, actor, and educator for over fifty years. Janice is a graduate of the East Carolina University Theatre Program and and has done graduate studies in theatre at UNC-Greensboro, California State University, Central Washington University, and the University of Southern Maine. For thirteen years, she was the Director of Theatre at Arendell Parrott Academy in Kinston, North Carolina. She is also one of the founders of the Magnolia Arts Center in Greenville, North Carolina and has served on the board of the North Carolina Theatre Conference. ​

Rodney Smith

Rodney has been part of the Asheville theater scene for more than a decade, spending the last five years writing and directing. He has written and directed, among others, a Fringe Award-winning one-act (Table 6), two full-length originals (Night of the Living Dead: REDUX and Full-Tilt Boogie at the Big Bang Diner). Rodney was also an integral part of  The SuperHappy Radio Hour comedy podcast, head writer/director of the Crimes and Missed Demeanings comedy/variety show series, and curator/writer/director of the horror anthology, The Horror Show: Tales from the Red Room.  When not working in theater, he is an award-winning, internationally published photographer doing business as Tempus Fugit Design.
Attic Salt Theatre Company
​2002 Riverside Dr. 
Suite 42-O
​Asheville, NC 28804
(828) 708-SHOW
Executive Director 
Marci Bernstein
marci@atticsalt.org

Artistic Director
Jeff Catanese
jeff@atticsalt.org