Broadway was one of the first forms of entertainment. Before there were television shows or movies, there was Broadway. Broadway originated in New York in 1750, when actor-manager Walter Murray built a theater company at the Theater on Nassau Street. A musical was shown about once every weekend. The shows were very male-based and commonly showed a relationship between boys and their fathers. Women were slowly integrated into Broadway, and as society changed its view of women, so did the theater. The first all-female shows were released in the 1950s. These musicals attracted more female audiences and ticket sales increased exponentially. Musicals like The Sound of Music and My Fair Lady showed how women were an important part of life, while musicals like Spring Awakening, Aida, and Wicked showed the extreme empowerment of women. Genre influences and shapes every aspect of the musical. “Genre is a constituent element of Broadway musical theater, fundamental to the architecture of the musical and as vital an element as the music, the lyrics, the orchestration, the spoken word, the choreography and dance, the lights, the sets , costumes and props. Show from the beginning the role to be played” (Wolf, p.6)As soon as an actor sets foot on stage, the audience sees his gender and plays that character accordingly. The character of Maria Rainer in Rogers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music is not just a happy, vibrant person who sings about the Austrian mountains and the joy they bring her; she is a young postulant nun who is unsure of her future. In Maria's first meeting with Captain Von Trapp, he is a stern man who walks around her living room frustrated. Like the character of Maria g...... middle of paper..."https://www.academia.edu/748189/_Consuming_Little_Girls_How_Broadway_and_New_York_City_Capitalized_on_Peggy_Sawyer_and_Little_Orphan_Annies_Big_Apple_Dreams_." Journal of American Drama and Theater 21.2 (2009): 67-87. Print."Bad - Broadway." Broadway.com. Np, October 12, 2006. Web. December 15, 2013. Lupo, Stacy Ellen. Changed Forever: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical. New York: Oxford UP, 2011. Print.Pollard, Laura."https://www.academia.edu/748189/_Consuming_Little_Girls_How_Broadway_and_New_York_City_Capitalized_on_Peggy_Sawyer_and_Little_Orphan_Annies_Big_Apple_Dreams_." Journal of American Drama and Theater 21.2 (2009): 67-87. Print."Bad - Broadway." Broadway.com. Np, October 12, 2006. Web. December 15, 2013. Lupo, Stacy Ellen. Changed Forever: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical. New York: Oxford UP, 2011. Print.