The document provides a contextual analysis of the song "Non-Stop" from the musical Hamilton. It summarizes the plot points covered in the song, including Hamilton finishing his studies, defending Levi Weeks in court, and attempting to recruit Burr to help write the Federalist Papers. It also describes the roles of ensemble characters in the song, including singing, dancing, and acting together to portray the story and emphasize important lyrics. The document concludes by noting how the musical incorporates singing, dancing, and acting skills and discusses areas of focus in rehearsals like emphasis, projection and confidence for ensemble performers.

1. Hamilton Contextual
Analysis
The piece ‘Non-Stop’ from the musical
Hamilton is the 23rd song of act one
and the final song of act one, in
which Burr and Hamilton finish their
studies in New York they discuss
defending Levi Weeks and Burr
questions why Hamilton needs to justify his
intelligence. Hamilton is invited as a delegate to
the Constitutional Convention and attempts to
convince Burr to help him author The Federalist
Papers in defence of his Constitution. Burr declines
and therefore Hamilton reaches out to James Madison
and John Jay to help him write his papers. Later on
in the piece Angelica tells Hamilton that she is
moving to London and urges Hamilton to write to her,
whereas Eliza begs him to stay with her and agrees
with angelica that he can never be satisfied.
Washington then discusses with Hamilton and remind
him that history has its eyes on him, however
Hamilton continues his work despite the warning.
Hamilton is set in 1776 and is inspired by the 2004
biography Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, in which
it tells the story of the American Founding Father
Alexander Hamilton. The main themes of the musical
Hamilton are building a legacy, love and maturity.
Within this piece, I am playing an ensemble
character, in which I will be singing, acting and
dancing, to show all of the musical theatre elements
in this piece. I would describe my role of being an
ensemble character as being powerful, serious,
strong, confident and upbeat which is shown through
my strong movements, use of dynamics, high energy
movements, good posture, costumes and facial
expressions. As an ensemble character I have to work
with other characters too. At the end of the song the
characters Angelica, Eliza and Washington harmonise
for a big build up at the end of the song, and to
show the importance of the words they are singing.

2. During this harmony, as an ensemble character I have
to join in and harmonise too, once again in order to
show the importance of the line “History has its eyes
on you” being sung to Hamilton. During the song, as
an ensemble character I have to act as Hamilton’s
Jury in which I have to hold up a chair as a table to
signify him writing a letter on a table whilst
singing “How do you write like your running out of
time”.
Prior to this piece, King George asks the rebels how
they will succeed in governing on their own within
the song ‘What Comes Next’. After this Lafayette
returns to France with plans to inspire his people to
have their revolution. Hamilton has a son ‘Philip’
and Burr has a daughter ‘Theodosia’, and during the
song ‘Dear Theodosia’ the two men tell their children
how they will do anything to protect them. Hamilton
then receives news that his friend Laurens was killed
in a seemingly pointless battle after the war was won
and throws himself into his work in the song
‘Tomorrow There’ll be more of us’.
The piece ‘Non-Stop’ from Hamilton uses all three
musical theatre elements which is why we chose to do
this piece as a class ass we have some actors, some
singers and some dancers, which means we can all have
an input in the piece in our chosen musical theatre
element. The main skills used in this piece for
singing are; harmonizing, tone, pitch, confidence and
facial expressions. For dance I feel that the most
important skills needed are; energy, technique,
confidence, special awareness and flexibility. And
for acting I feel like the main skills needed are;
facial expressions, projection, accent, movement,
body language and memory for scripts.
Within our rehearsals we are working on adding in
more emphasis to the whole piece, as we all know the
lyrics and moves but we need to practice performing
them how we will in the final showcase so that we
know what we need to work on. Another thing that we
are working on is our projection as specifically me
and the other ensemble characters are very scared to

3. project our voices as our main musical theatre
element is dance, therefore it is hard to hear us
over the music.