Carrollwood Cultural Center Dedicates Stage to Mary Ann Scialdo

During an interview in 2002, Carrollwood Cultural Center artistic director Mary Ann Scialdo said that she was “blessed with so many angels.”

Members of the Center found it fitting to honor their angel, who at 67 passed from cancer in July 2010 with the location she found herself most at home: the stage.

“Mary Ann was a dear friend and the heart of Carrollwood Cultural Center,” said center volunteer Ellia Sliwiak. “We are having a permanent plaque installed on the stage in her memory.”

The stage dedication is open to the public today at 5 p.m. at the Center, 4537 Lowell Road, preceding opening night of MAS Community Theatre’s production of Come Blow Your Horn at 7 p.m.

The production will mark the first for the MAS Community Theatre, named in honor of Scialdo.

The Center’s board president, Nancy Sterns, along with Helen Michaelson, Itzy Freedman and Jan McCarthy will join Sliwiak and Mary Ann’s sister, Vickie Cuccia, to share fond memories of Scialdo with the audience.

“Mary Ann had the energy of a 2-year-old – this great energy that you wanted to be around,” said Paul Berg, the Center’s executive director. “She had a way with people. She was genuinely a good person. She loved to help others and was the spirit of the Center. People could relate to her.”

Said Sliwiak:

“She was the energizer bunny with a love and passion for the arts. She wanted the arts to thrive, and she brought Carrollwood Cultural Center together as a family.”

A Juilliard-trained pianist and a former music teacher at both Miles Elementary and Webb Middle School, Scialdo was instrumental in forming the Center’s Broadway Kids program and its chorus.

She died just weeks before the opening night of Broadway’s Kids 2010 production of The Music Man.

Berg said the progress made by the Center would have impressed Scialdo.

“She would be proud of where we’ve come since first opening our doors,” said Berg. “She made sure we put on quality cultural and educational programs. Mary Ann had a high standard of quality.”

Scialdo was also patient with children, said Sliwiak.

“She helped cultivate the Center, and made it come alive," she said. "It wouldn’t be prospering the way it is without her. I think she’d be happy that we are still such a family. She gave her heart to everybody. Mary Ann really was an angel.”