Although the roots of Readers Theatre can be traced to the performers of the fifth century Greece, the first professional Readers Theatre production was staged on October 22, 1951. It was the interpretative reading of Bernard Shaw's Don Juan in Hell, which was performed by four well-known actors: Charles Laughton, Agnes Moorehead, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, and Charles Boyer. The production was welcomed by the public and the critics, was taken on a tour all over the country, and established the phenomenon of Readers Theatre.

John Brown's Body, adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benet's narrative poem, opened on February 14, 1953. Just as the first Readers theatre production, this one was also directed by Laughton, and featured Raymond Massey, Judith Anderson, and Tyrone Power. The three performers read multiple parts, and the chorus was used to create vocal sound effects to help the audience visualize the action. Critics met the production with less enthusiasm than the previous one, probably because--as it happens with anything--the concept and form were no longer new.

The productions that followed were Dylan Thomas' Under the Milk Wood, opened on October 15, 1957 in New York, which had thirty-nine performances after that; Berthold Brecht's Mother Courage, directed by Alan Cooke and staged on October 12, 1959. On January 3, 1962, a production of Brecht on Brecht directed by Gene Frankel was opened; it consisted of the poems, letters, essays, stories, and plays by Brecht, and it ran for four hundred and forty performances.
	On May 1, 1963 Charles Aidman staged the production of Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology which was never meant for stage. The production achieved great success.

After the 60s Readers Theatre have become more popular on the educational that on professional level. The techniques of Readers Theatre have proved to be very successful and helpful in teaching and learning processes, because they provide the readers and the audience with a unique opportunity to explore the world of a literary work in ways that require a strong involvement of the imagination.