Playback Theatre was founded in 1975 in the Mid-Hudson Valley in New York by Jonathan Fox with Jo Salas and other members of the original Playback Theatre company. Playback Theatre is used in educational, therapeutic, social change, and arts settings, either as performance, with a company of trained actors and a defined audience; or as a group event led by an individual, in which participants become actors as well as tellers for each other. Playback Theatre companies now exist in many localities, usually calling themselves after their town, such as Melbourne Playback Theatre, or Köln Playback Theatre.

Books written by the founders Jonathan Fox and Jo Salas are published by Tusitala Publishing.