Giving His Regards To Broadway
He is the youngest person to be booked at the Algonquin's famed Oak Room, or to sing at New York's Cabaret Convention.
Indeed, he is the youngest act ever on the New York cabaret circuit.
At the ripe age of 18, Australian Tim Draxl is a cabaret singer stunning anyone who hears him.
Arthur Pompicello, the cabaret manager for the Oak Room, recognized Tim's " youthful, bound-y personality, " when he booked him last fall. Pompicello says the Australian reminds him of " a young Joel Grey, " the Broadway legend best known for originating the role of the Emcee in the musical Cabaret.
In a medium like cabaret, known for its celebration of jazz and theater standards, Draxl is adept at interpreting the sentiments of George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Lerner & Lowe, and especially Stephen Sondheim.
Draxl makes a case for youth being remarkably suited to songs like It's D'Lovely, Someone To Watch Over Me, Somewhere and When I Fall In Love.
"Someone To Watch Over Me" (G. Gershwin,I.Gershwin)Draxl, an accomplished dancer-singer-actor, was discovered in a masterclass in Sydney, and swiftly plucked out by cabaret great Andrea Marcovicci, to be pushed into his own spotlight.
Draxl has already been honored with a 'MO' award (the Australian Tony) for Best New Talent, and he recently won an 'Outstanding Male Debut' award from the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs.
"I love cabaret, because it's so intimate, and you share a personal story. But whether that's cabaret at The Firebird (his most recent New York engagement) or doing a concert at Carnegie Hall, it's still about you, giving you, as a person. The things that you believe in, the songs that you love. "
Draxl claims he is most comfortable on stage. "I knew I had performing instinct when I was four-and-a-half, when I started dancing…it's my chance to show everybody what I can do, it's my chance to prove myself. I get excited about being able to share something with people, through something as pure as singing. "
The fourth of four boys born to an Australian mother and an Austrian father, he grew up spending six months a year in Austria, and the other six in Jindabyne, a mountain town six hours south of Sydney. A quietly dramatic young man, Draxl calls Australia home but says he identifies with being European.
" My family's not involved too much, and I like it that way. They are very supportive, for that I'm grateful. And they keep my feet on the ground, like nothing else. "
 Marco Sacchi |
| Draxl's debut CD "Ordinary Miracles" (Sony/Columbia) |
Live theatre has recently been suffering for audiences, especially younger members. When asked what a young actor thinks about this often-dismal situation, Draxl is realistic:
"It's sad. There are so many beautiful songs, and beautiful shows, and they're just being revived. I mean, I love Rent, but it's not the same. You can only revive things so many times. Eventually, all the shows are going to have to appeal to the market that's out there now."
" Those wonderful songs, like Gershwin and Cole Porter, there's nothing like that, and it's scary to think that those songs could be lost, because there will be no one to listen to them, my generation's not listening to them. There are young-er cabaret artists, people that are trying to make this music live on, but to be able to survive, as a young person, you feel you have to pay off, by making it slightly contemporary, to be able to draw in an audience. "
"No One Is Alone" (S.Sondheim)As for his peers in the cabaret circles, " I do get set apart, because the cabaret industry itself, I don't think they quite know how to take me, how to respond to somebody who's 18 and doing what they're doing. Normally - whatever 'normal' is - it's something that you discover later on in your career, when you have a life story to pour out to an audience. "
" One of my goals has always been to bring this music back to my generation, but bring it back as a new kind of music, not as a revival of the old. The only way that's going to happen is by getting these songs played on the radio. "
At 17, Draxl signed on with Sony/Columbia for a 5-CD contract, and he has big plans for his future recordings.
" For my next album, most of the songs I'm choosing are from the 20's and 30's, and what I want to do is use those lyrics, that passion that all those great composers had, take that and adapt it to appeal to audiences my age. By making it loud! Bigger orchestrations, but also a really contemporary feel, taking an old song and putting it against a 21st century backdrop. "
Many would question 'young Tim's' ability to know what much of Gershwin and Porter's material is about. Perhaps a person needs ample life experience to understand music and lyrics written several decades ago. To this Draxl answers thaeven though he listens to " all kinds of music " it is the classic material of the 20's, 30's and 40's that really moves him.
" I've always felt that I have something to give, we all do, it doesn't matter how old you are. I joke about it in the show, I'm always the youngest person to do this and that, it's funny, but at the same time, it's irrelevant. "
Draxl's career has picked up unbelievable momentum in the past two years, but he still has his eyes on the future.
" I kind of just like to see myself as a 'one-off ' and soon, if I wasn't something special, then I'd just be another 30-year-old singer. And I don't want to be that, I want to be something different, I want to be known for something. I do get criticisms for being so young, and people not being able to accept that I feel the things I feel, but I do feel those things. I'm not just an eighteen-year-old. "
By MANDY CARTER