This document provides a comparison of the themes, elements, and structures of the musicals Hamilton, Matilda, and Wicked. Some key points: 1) The musicals explore different themes - Hamilton focuses on history, war, and honor while Matilda examines relationships, power, and loyalty and Wicked friendship. 2) Important elements like the 11 o'clock number are used to advance the story - in Matilda it is "Revolting Children" and in Hamilton it is "Non-Stop". 3) Dramatic moments like Hamilton's death develop character and elicit emotion from the audience. 4) Structures ensure the audience can follow the performance and engage with the characters.

1. Musical Theatre Essay
Throughout my essay I have chosen the three musicals to focus on to be Hamilton,
Matilda, and Wicked. All three of these musicals have different themes, but still share
some similarities and differences.
Musical theatre is a combination of three skills – dancing, acting and singing. They work
in unison to tell a story and engage an audience throughout. This helps keep each of the
musicals entertaining and diverse for all viewers.
Throughout Matilda, there are different themes that come across. For example, these are
relationships, power and loyalty. Matilda is a modern-day musical which introduces topics
that would happen day to day, now. This means it is able to target younger children who
can learn from the musical as well as gain enjoyment. The theme of power is quickly
introduced in the beginning of the musical when we are introduced to Matilda's parents –
Mr and Mrs Wormwood. They, alongside Miss Trunchbull, try to gain physical and
emotional power over Matilda by belittling her and in some ways bullying her by abusing
their power. This is a strong message as it shows that Matilda can overcome this and
achieve a lot of great things even with the overbearingness of these people. The
relationships in this musical apart from the family and headteacher relationship and
friendship and teacher relationship. Throughout the musical you watch these positive
relationships grow and flourish, which backs up the theme of relationships. This has a
similarity to Hamilton, because within both pieces, many different love and family
relationships. In Hamilton, the main themes are history, war & conflict and honor.
Hamilton was set in 1755 but showed a timeline of events for the next 100 years (until
1855) and was about how Alexandar Hamilton recovered from poverty as well as going
against the American War of Independence alongside the relationships and conflict he
builds and comes across. These themes are portrayed throughout the musical as the
main scenario ongoing is the American War which is obviously a significant event in
history. This branches over the two themes war & conflict and history. There are many
different songs and scenes that have the underlying topic of the war and what conflict
occurs such as the argument between Hamilton and Burr about what decisions they
should make, and other conflict regarding the deaths of multiple characters with a high
status. The theme of honor is a theme relating to the reputations that the different
characters uphold. For example, Hamiltons reputation is something that he needs to
protect to ensure that he still has the power he welds and desires. This is ongoing in the

2. musical and each character needs to protect themselves and others in order to be safe
and valued. This is different to Wicked because one of the main themes in Wicked is
friendship, which is a different kind of relationship to the ones that are portrayed
throughout Hamilton where the relationships involve love or are built because of business
and the current situations. However, in Wicked the theme is similar to the one in Matilda
because throughout both plays, we see the main characters that we have built sympathy
for, finally find themselves getting on well with somebody on an emotional level.
The structure of Wicked tells the story of the witches of Oz. This means that the musical
starts as introducing the characters to the audience and allowing us to straight away start
understanding the roles of these characters.
The 11-o clock number and showstopping number are normally used to help tell the story
and build towards the climax. For example, in Wicked the 11-o clock number is Defying
gravity. This is because in this song, it really shows how Elphaba feels towards the
situation, and what her future plans are. This massively helps to move the performance
along as we can then start seeing the changes to what Elphaba is going to do, and how
she does it. Then the show-stopping number would be For Good, performed by Elphaba
and Glinda as we see how their relationship has blossomed and their feelings towards
each other. The 11-o clock number in Matilda is revolting children as this is where the
children finally start rebelling against Miss Trunchbull, which all the audience are hoping
for. We see the real compassion the children have towards reaching this goal and see a
glimpse of what it is going to take. In Hamilton, although controversial opinions about if it
is or not, I would say that the 11-o clock number is Non-Stop. This is because we start
seeing Hamiltons passion for helping towards the American Revolution and ensuring that
Levi Weeks is deemed as innocent in court. We also start understanding Burr’s opinion
on how Hamilton works, and if the decisions they both propose are going to be successful,
which is important for the rest of the musical.
The dance and choreography are key for all three musicals. There are many dance
numbers, and movement is definitely used during transition and set changes. For
example, in Matilda Revolting Children, it is not only the child performers dancing. The
adults are brought onto stage and carry out more difficult choreography. This helps
towards the piece because we can understand that this revolution is very important, so
by having adults perform as well, it makes it more distinctive that this is the point coming
across. In Wicked, there are a lot of major set changes. For example, when the gates are
opened to the Wizards lair, the ‘monkeys’ are physically used to distract the fact the set
it being changed, and the audience watch the performers. They make the scene achieve
the fact it is eerie and dark, and potentially something bad is going to occur.
The music and singing play a big part, as obviously, it is a musical. For example, in
Matilda, she performs Quiet. This occurs when Miss Trunchbull has been shouting at
Matilda's class, she argues back, meaning Miss Trunchbull directs her anger towards her.
She sings this as she is ‘blocking out all the noise’. It is a quiet song (funnily enough) and
we begin to feel bad for Matilda as we understand that when she is home, she deals with

3. the same thing she does at school, big characters belittling her. In Hamilton, Eliza
performs a song ‘Burn’. She is angry that Hamilton is writing to someone else, and taking
advantage of all she does for him. This is significant as we can now start to see cracks in
the relationship between the two, pushing them both to make a decision.
There are many different dramatic moments in all three musicals. That builds the tension
and shows a lot of character development. For example, when Hamilton gets shot. He
runs us through what his view of death is, and how it is going to affect his thoughts. He
says, “I will see my mother on the other side”, allowing us to feel bad for him, even if
people agree with his death. We are brought into Elizas feelings on his death and what it
means to her, showing the relationship the two had and how it is going to impact a beloved
character in the musical. In Matilda, we watch how Miss Honeys love for Matilda
progresses and how fascinated she is by her. She uses her body language and soft facial
expressions to show how much she cares about her. Not only does that allow the
audience to appreciate Miss Honey but they feel joyous that Matilda has a mature figure
that cares about her.
The structure in these musicals is important because it makes sure that it runs smoothly,
and the audience can understand what it going on whilst also forming opinions on
characters, scenes and the overall performance, so that they can enjoy their watch.