The Digital Performance Institute (DPI) was founded in 2001 by the Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre (GSRT) as an extension of their programs and services to the field. DPI has continued to grow, expanding to include an artist residency program providing technical services and rehearsal space for long-term production development processes, and an active web presence designed to encourage discussion, documentation, and archiving of the theater community's ongoing experiments in integrating digital technology into live performance. In addition, DPI provides equipment and consulting support for a wide range of theater groups and performing artists.

GSRT was founded in 1990 by Cheryl Faver, an MFA graduate from the Yale School of Drama, then John Reaves and Liz Dreyer, also Yale graduates, joined the theater in 1991 when GSRT began to experiment with digital technology in theater performance, training and production planning as a strategy to encourage artists and arts organizations to invent new forms and processes. Their work on the integration of theater and technology attracted some of the world's leading technology labs, including Bell Labs, NTT Labs, and IBM's Hursley Labs in the UK.

For example, in 1992 GSRT worked with IBM to demonstrate a "transcontinental rehearsal", leveraging IBM's videoconferencing and application sharing software to enable a multimedia collaborative session between Chicago, NYC, and a telecom industry conference in the south of France. GSRT went on to develop a number of demonstration projects for IBM, including the IBM Pavilion in the Internet World's Fair, focused on the use of digital technology in arts and education, an early (1996) representation of the global potential of the Web.

In 1997, GSRT began a collaboration with Binghamton University to support the theater studies curriculum with web-based interactive multimedia, including digitized film and 3D set designs, and live videoconferences with leading theater practitioners from Japan, St. Petersburg, and the Moscow Art Theatre. Out of this work came an appreciation for the importance of theater documentation and archives. In Russia, for example, theater museums make it possible to explore the rich history of experimental theater of the 1920s and 30s; in the basement of the Bakrushin Museum in Moscow are the original drawings for Meyerhold's famous Constructivist
set, the Magnanimous Cuckold. With Karen Brazell, a Noh theater scholar at Cornell University, GSRT helped found the Global Performing Arts Consortium, which is developing a multicultural database of theater study materials from around the world.

In 1998, John Reaves and Liz Dreyer created Learning Worlds, a for-profit marketing and strategic consulting group, to support the theater and individual artists. Learning Worlds leverages the theater's experience in integrating communications and storytelling with innovation and new technology. Clients range from small startups to large global technology companies, including IBM, SAP, NTT, Epson, and Microsoft.

The company's creative community follows a theatrical paradigm that embraces intense collaboration and avant-garde thinking. Learning Worlds' diverse staff includes directors, writers, stage managers, set designers, sculptors, musicians, and filmmakers. This is a conscious policy and is reflected in recruiting and HR policies. For example, each employee can set their own target hours and schedule, and can negotiate time off for auditions, tours, classes, and individual arts projects. Learning Worlds and GSRT collaborate on supporting artistic residencies for both Learning Worlds staff and outside artists.