When baseball scouts assess the potential of high school and college athletes to make the major leagues, they look for “tools,” those instinctive abilities that can’t be taught. The player could be raw and inexperienced, but if they show above-average talent in running, fielding, throwing, hitting for average and hitting for power, they are said to be “five-tool” players.

Successful cabaret performers must possess their own tool sets, but in most cases only having “the voice” is instinctive. The other tools—choosing the right material, interpreting lyrics in a compelling way, delivering an engaging script and having a confident, almost commanding stage presence that enables them to connect with an audience—can be learned and developed with practice and experience.

As she displayed during her recent show at Feinstein’s, Elizabeth Tryon is a lovely and likeable young performer who clearly has some cabaret “tools.” A opera-trained singer, Tryon’s soprano is especially sweet in the higher register and can soar on an aria (like the two—“Le Colibri” and “Chacun le sait”— that bookended her show), yet is also technically solid enough to put over a Broadway number like “Another Suitcase in Another Hall” from Evita. She proved that she can interpret lyrics from songwriters ranging from Lorenz Hart to Joni Mitchell to Jason Robert Brown. Her storyline in Where the Music Takes Me—the quest to become a professional singer and ultimately produce the CD of her dreams—was structurally sound with songs that fit well within its narrative arc (even if it was a tad self-indulgent). And her four original songs showed Elizabeth has an affinity for writing upbeat pop tunes and contemporary-sounding ballads.

But if there were cabaret scouts in the Feinstein’s audience, they would have seen enough flaws in Tryon’s show and performance to report that Elizabeth still needs some work on her tools, especially her stage presence. During many numbers in the 16-song set, Tryon didn’t always know what do with her hands, which made her come across as a bit nervous and stiff. She didn’t work the stage and play to both sides of the wide room at Feinstein’s, and when you combine that with a delivery that can be reserved and restrained, Elizabeth never completely connected with the audience. She didn’t take her microphone out of its stand until the ninth song of the set, a move that would have worked well earlier when she sang the Gershwins’ “Someone to Watch Over Me,” which should have been a more seductive interpretation given how Elizabeth fit the song into the show’s theme (in this case, looking for an “influential” man to discover her). And, with the exception of a couple of her own songs in the second half of the set, she didn’t really take advantage of having the New York cabaret scenes new go-to guitarist, MAC Award winner Sean Harkness, as part of her two-piece orchestra (along with Musical Director and pianist Doug Oberhamer).

Now the good news: Elizabeth’s show hit its stride on the seventh song when she sounded positively ethereal on the Celtic-influenced “The Voice” (Brendan Graham), and she followed that with self-penned clever lyrics in Sondheim’s “Putting It Together” to relate her own story on how she pursued creating a CD. After a cute parody of Joe Raposo’s “Sing” (“Write, write a song/Write it simple, write it strong . . .”), Elizabeth offered four original pop tunes from her CD, including the soaring ballad “You’re Still Mine,” which was used as the soundtrack to a video honoring U.S. Forces stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tryon also delivered a lovely rendition of the Joni Mitchell classic “Both Sides Now,” during which Oberhamer and Harkness were particularly effective.

Elizabeth Tryon possesses the potential to be a solid cabaret performer, but if she wants to be a hit outside of the recording studio, she needs to develop all the aspects of her game. Her show must be more than about where the music is taking her; it must be about where her music, her story and her stage personality are taking the audience. As Tryon stages more shows, gets more experience, and refines her "tools," it will be fascinating to see if she can make the leap from prospect to cabaret star.

Stephen Hanks
Cabaret Scenes
August 2, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org