#BookEndsSpotlight- Moe Ferrara

Today’s installment of #BookEndsSpotlight is especially for the birthday agent– Moe Ferrara. Everybody get to know Moe, and wish her a Happy Birthday with us!

1. If you could be any animal, what would you be and why?

I’d be an otter. I mean, do I really have to say why or can I just answer in gif form?

But if I have to actually explain and not look at adorable otter gifs all day long – I love how sleek they are in the water. As a kid I’d spend hours standing in front of their aquarium, watching them frolic and play. They’re intelligent and who wouldn’t want to spend their day going back and forth between water and sunning themselves?

2. Which of your five full albums (not just a song here and there) get the most repeat play?

UNSURPRISINGLY… this is all broadway related. Please, raise your hand if you’re surprised by this knowledge. They are, in no particular order:

• Sunday in the Park with George (I could say every Sondheim show ever, but I’ll go with this.)
• Falsettoland (okay, if you don’t know this show, please do yourself a favor and listen. It’s on Spotify. It’s a life-changing show.)
• Chess: In Concert (if you’re wondering how a game of chess can be a 2 hour musical, just ask Abba and give a listen. Takes place at the height of the cold war.)
• Priscilla Queen of the Desert (this is cheating, since one of my good friends from high school is one of the leads–yes, I know Nick Adams. But as jukebox musicals go? It’s got the best upbeat music for when you need cheering up.)
• Hamilton (Honestly this list should have been Hamilton 5 times as it’s basically what I’ve listened to constantly for over a year now.)

3. If you could sum up your life philosophy in under ten words, what would it be (and how did you get there?)

Learn to see the forest for the trees.

It’s not always something I’m able to do either but I try. When working on my thesis in college, my beloved advisor gave me this advice. Stop focusing on the little things and learn to see the big picture. Because often times the sweating the small stuff means you may be missing out on something larger. Or, more often than naught, the smaller stuff will iron itself out. I may have lost Dr. Hartzell about six years ago to Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, but his advice has always stayed with me.

4. What is your favorite reality tv show?

Oh this is so going to get eyebrow raisings I can feel it. But my favorite reality tv show is my #1 guilty pleasure: Dance Moms. Don’t judge me.

No, really, don’t judge me.

You’re judging me, aren’t you?

5. If you lead another life, not in publishing, what would you be doing instead?

This is probably the easiest question on here for me to answer as it was my original dream job. And, no, it has nothing to do with law either! If I lead any other life, I’d be playing eight shows a week in the pit orchestra somewhere on Broadway. Many of you know I do a lot of theatre and went to school for violin performance in college. What you may not know is I’m starting my 17^th year at my local community theatre where I’ve been the concertmaster just about all that time and have played in the pit for over 100 different productions. But, alas, an injury to my shoulder kept me from the whole Broadway thing!

6. What would surprise us about you?

And now… the hardest question to answer! I’m pretty much an open book so most of you know my music background and love of all things corgis.

But what you may not know – is that on one side of my family, I can trace my lineage back over seven generations to when they left Germany in the early 1700s. Not only that, but when they came to America, they were one of four founding families of a small town in PA (Fryburg, PA after Freiburg Germany) and their names are on a stained glass window of the town church.

7. If you could turn any activity into an Olympic sport, what would you have a good chance at winning a gold medal for?

This is a tough call between napping and knowing every line to cult classic films (don’t ask me for one line from Clue or Young Frankenstein. You’ll wind up getting the whole scene…) but I think napping is going to win out. Maybe it’s because I’m writing this on a very dreary day that just begs to see me curled up in my favorite arm chair!

But, of course, I thought I would easily win the gold medal — but I think my new intern may have me beat. It’s all up to the judges now.

8. If you could invite any three people (literary or not) to your dinner table who would it be and what would you serve (food and drink)?

My who I’d invite to dinner spans a wide gamut: Edgar Allan Poe, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Stephen Sondheim.

As for what I’d serve, if it could be anything in the world (and not counting my damn gluten allergy) I’d do our homemade Ferrara pasta sauce (yes, like any good Italian, we have an amazing recipe) that is typically simmered all day long with a hunk of pork, braciole, and meatballs along with pasta made and dried that same day.

Wine? Well, any wine would be on the table… except I can guarantee it will NOT be a cask of a rare vintage of amontillado. (I know how that story ends.)

9. If you could travel back in time to any single year or event then back again only once, what would you choose and why?

Perhaps an unsurprising answer from the musicologist in the group (really, I do have a lot of different hats I’ve worn over the years thanks to university), I’d go back to May 7, 1824 to hear the world premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony debut in Vienna. There are so many stories about that night: about the conductor saying to ignore Beethoven, about Beethoven waving his arms and tapping out tempos to an orchestra he couldn’t hear. As a piece of music considered to be one of the greatest works of Western music of all time, I just want to hear that first performance. To sit in an audience and not know what is about to come next and hear that composition for the first time? Priceless.

(if you were curious, the runner up time travel spot would be also something music related: May 29, 1913: to see the premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in Paris – and to see if it really did cause a riot outside the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées…)