context

1. Hamilton Contextual Analysis
The piece we are performing as a company is ‘Non-Stop’ from the musical Hamilton. The
piece is about the competitive struggle between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, and
Hamilton’s “climb to the top'', despite Burr being, arguably, the more experienced individual.
The musical ‘Hamilton’ is set in the late 18th to early 19th century, and explains the
American Revolution and the origins of the Founding Fathers of America. The main themes
of the musical are centred around conflict, power, greed and history.
Hamilton mixes hip-hop, jazz, R&B and Broadway. These types of music are prevalent
throughout the musical, and gives it a very modern feel which juxtaposes its historical plot.
The character that I’m playing is Aaron Burr, described, especially in this piece, as
Hamilton’s political rival/equal/competitor. His attitude is opposite of Hamilton’s, as he would
rather wait for things to happen and wait for opportunities rather than trying to climb after
them like Hamilton does. This is why, in the middle of the piece, there is a spoken section
where Hamilton is annoyed with Burr at waiting and not doing anything, or what he considers
the right thing to do. He’s extremely cautious, but is a charming individual, and would rather
watch from a distance instead of taking part in things.
Prior to ‘Non-Stop’, Hamilton has taken part in the American Revolution and became George
Washington’s ‘right hand man’, taking up duties that he would later be remembered for in
years to come. He marries a woman called Eliza Schuyler in the middle of the American
Revolution. Meanwhile, Burr is actively waiting for ‘it’, be it opportunity or love, as he’s
smitten with an American woman married to an English general. Hamilton and Burr have
always been at odds, and usually it is Hamilton who emerges ‘victorious’ so to speak, such
as having Washington listen to his ideas whilst sending Burr away. Even when there was a
duel between their two friends, they were both the ‘second’ of the two duelling, therefore
being legitimately on opposite sides. When the war is over and the Revolution is won, Burr
and Hamilton become lawyers at the same time, which is told in the piece ‘Non-Stop’ in
which we are performing.
This piece combines all aspects of musical theatre, with acting, singing and dancing. The
entire piece is sung by several different characters, with parts from the ensemble; the
ensemble are the key part in this performance as they have to combine all three of the
aspects of musical theatre in the background to create a dramatic ambience; this means that
a main skill in this piece has to be endurance and stamina. The piece is around six minutes
long, which can be considered very long for a musical piece, which means that there is six
minutes of combined dancing, singing and acting. This means that the performers need to
be able to endure through the piece and keep up their energy so that the audience doesn’t
get bored, or see through the facade of our performance and acting. There are many other
skills that are evident in this piece, as it’s very complex. There has to be a mix of movement
skills, singing skills, acting skills like facial expressions and characterisation; blending all of
these skills together is difficult, which means that rehearsing and practising non-stop will be
imperative to the performance.
In rehearsals, we are working on character development and our own characterisation. This
is important because with the piece being so long, we need to make sure that we keep the
audience’s attention through our own skills. Polishing this piece and over-rehearsing this is

2. also important because the choreography and lyrics need to be perfected so that we can
work on the deeper aspects of the piece, like proxemics and facial expressions.
Characterisation is important to show the relationship between different characters. Hamilton
interacts with all characters; interacting with Burr needs to seem tense and competitive, to
show their true relationship. His interactions with his wife and her sister have to be more
tender, to show a loving side to Hamilton, while interacting with Washington in the piece has
to be ambitious and almost cocky, to show Hamilton’s almost egotistical nature.