Cinema as a medium emerged in Maharashtra. There was a history of about seventy years prior to this which nurtured a conducive cultural climate for cinema. Vishnudas Bhave stayed the first Marathi drama in Sangli in 1843. Music till then was the sole entertainer. In 1880, the musical dramas started in Maharashtra.When cinema appeared in 1912, people were used to assembling in the auditorium for seeing a drama. In a sense, cinema as the medium of story telling was being handled previously in the form of stage plays.They in fact are precursors of movies.