The Uncanney Alley team at the 81st Venice Biennale
From within her hacker hideout, Gh0st commands the just-released inmates to fire up the Electronic Pulse Generator in a last‑ditch effort to save her companion, Atom.
Against the odds, Uncanny Alley: A New Day – an artist‑led ensemble – delivers performances that can never be replicated exactly the same way twice.
“It’s co‑creation, but with a solid theatrical foundation underneath. The script protects the story. The audience brings it to life.”— -Deirdre V Lyons, Ferryman Collective Artistic DirectorLOS ANGELES, CA, UNITED STATES, September 6, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — In a stunning turn of events, Ferryman Collective and Virtual Worlds Company’s independent, artist‑driven immersive experience Uncanny Alley: A New Day – distributed inside the social VR platform VRChat – has claimed the Emmy for Outstanding Emerging Media Program at the 78th Emmy Awards.
A genuine underdog tale, Uncanny Alley: A New Day emerged from a small, non‑profit artist‑led team specializing in live VR theatre. It competed in the Outstanding Emerging Media Program category against projects backed by major entertainment companies such as Blumhouse and Amazon/Bethesda. That contrast makes the honor especially poignant: an independent live theatrical production, forged through collaboration, resourcefulness, and years of experimentation, held its own alongside some of the biggest names in entertainment and demonstrated that emerging media remains a space where artists can lead.
At the core of the production lies a deceptively simple concept: the audience is one of the most vital characters in the show. Existing at the intersection of theatre, film, and gaming, audiences become woven into the narrative, interacting directly with actors whose performances shift in real time.
Uncanny Alley: A New Day developed from the Uncanny Alley universe, created by Rick Treweek (also known as MetaRick). The groundbreaking live performance is co‑created from Stephen Butchko and Rick Treweek’s story IP and distinctive world‑building, as a collaboration between their respective companies – Ferryman Collective (USA) and Virtual Worlds Company (South Africa). Theatrical writing and directing was led by Ferryman co‑founders Stephen Butchko and Deirdre V. Lyons, while Ferryman’s Technical Director Christopher Lane Davis (aka Screaming Color) optimized and expanded the environment of Uncanny Alley: A New Day, adding original visual effects, music, and a performance UI.
“We know where the story starts and where it ends, but the audience determines a huge part of the journey in between,” says Whitton Frank, co‑founder and development director for Ferryman Collective. “We want people to feel that their presence really matters. When they give us something, we accept that gift, weave it into the performance, and carry on with the story.”
Set in a cinematic cyberpunk world built with the Unity game engine and then performed inside VRChat, Uncanny Alley: A New Day opens with audiences imprisoned after protesting a rally against the impending New Day update to their world. When the hacker Gh0st enlists her megabyte companion Puck to trigger an explosive jailbreak, audiences are thrust into a journey across a whimsical, dangerous, and unexpectedly human virtual world. Two actors portray 15 characters in real time, inviting audiences to speak directly with performers and interact with their surroundings while embodied as characters within the story.
Since its world premiere at Venice Immersive, Uncanny Alley: A New Day has been showcased at leading international festivals including SXSW, Raindance Immersive, NewImages Festival, and Augmented World Expo. The VRChat worlds for Ferryman Collective and Virtual Worlds Company have drawn nearly 750,000 visitors, a figure comparable to the average audience of a Broadway play.
That balance between structure and spontaneity is central to Ferryman Collective’s approach to live performance in virtual reality. The audience is given considerable freedom to decide where to look, what to explore, when to speak, and how deeply to engage. Rather than limiting that agency, the production employs theatrical and environmental design to gently guide attention back toward the unfolding narrative. The result is neither a conventional play nor an open‑world game.
A Different Kind of Liveness:
For Ferryman Collective, audience unpredictability is not a problem to solve – it is the source of the performance’s liveness.
Every performance reaches the same story destination, yet no two journeys are alike.
A Theatre Without a Traditional Building:
Most performances happen remotely, with actors and audiences joining from different locations around the world. Participants may be standing in a bedroom, office, living room, or another familiar space when they put on a headset. Seconds later, they find themselves beside strangers, friends, family, and live performers inside the world of Uncanny Alley: A New Day. This blend of physical privacy and shared virtual presence can create an unusual sense of freedom. Audience members arrive from different countries and time zones, often without knowing one another, and depart having shared a story together.
“Every audience gives the show something we could never script,” says Brendan Bradley, a company performer. “Our job is to catch it, honor it, and weave it back into the story.”
FERRYMAN COLLECTIVE is a multi‑award‑winning, Los Angeles‑based non‑profit VR theatre company creating award‑winning immersive experiences using interactive media. Past work includes Welcome to Respite, Gumball Dreams, and Find WiiLii (a collaboration with GiiÖii storytelling studio). Their work has been recognized at festivals worldwide including The Venice Film Festival, SXSW, Tribeca, and NewImages, and featured by Forbes, The Hollywood Reporter, IndieWire, No Proscenium, Loud and Clear Reviews, and XR Must.
VIRTUAL WORLDS COMPANY is a Cape Town‑based immersive studio operating globally, led by artist and world‑builder Rick Treweek (also known as MetaRick). The company builds virtual worlds that people can step inside, including original IP, live shows, workshops, communities, and social VR spaces. Its original universe, Uncanny Alley, began as a VRChat world. The first narrative experience from Uncanny Alley, The Search for GhOst, was selected for Venice VR Expanded in 2021 and later won the Spirit of Raindance Award in 2022. A New Day, a collaboration with Ferryman Collective, is the latest iteration of the Uncanny Alley universe.
VRCHAT is an ever‑expanding virtual universe powered by a passionate community who create and share virtual worlds, avatars, and interactive experiences. Since its founding in 2015, the platform has grown to millions of users and features a devoted community of creators who have published tens of millions of unique pieces of content.
Henry Eshelman, PMG
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Official Trailer: UNCANNY ALLEY: A NEW DAY
