Generally speaking — AKA, I KNOW THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS APLENTY — musicals are staged in bigger theaters than plays. 

Which squares with how audiences perceive their relative scale. 

BUT, there are a handful of houses in New York and London that specialize in producing musicals mere feet away from the audience. It’s not solely the seat count at the likes of London’s Southwark Playhouse and the Menier Chocolate Factory, and New York’s Classic Stage Company; their special sauce is predicated on the fact that all three venues are positioned either in the round, or in a 3/4ths arrangement. 

Which means: no seat is more than a few rows away from the belting voices and the orchestra’s instruments, providing a brand of immerse theater — specific to musicals — that immerse our eyes in the music, albeit from the static comfort of every seat.