The Uncanney Alley team at the 81st Venice Biennale
Operating from her hacker hideout, Gh0st commands the newly released prisoners to fire up the Electronic Pulse Generator in a last-ditch effort to revive her companion, Atom.
Beating the expectations, Uncanny Alley: A New Day—an artist-driven collective—delivers performances that are never repeated exactly the same way twice.
It’s co-creation, but anchored by a strong theatrical framework; the script preserves the narrative. The audience breathes life into it.— -Deirdre V Lyons, Ferryman Collective Artistic DirectorLOS ANGELES, CA, UNITED STATES, September 6, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — In a surprising turn, Uncanny Alley: A New Day—a modest, artist-led immersive experience from Ferryman Collective and Virtual Worlds Company, distributed within the social VR platform VRChat—has claimed the Emmy for Outstanding Emerging Media Program at the 78th Emmy Awards.
A classic underdog narrative, Uncanny Alley: A New Day emerged from a small, nonprofit artist-led team focused on live VR theatre, contending in the Outstanding Emerging Media Program category against projects backed by major entertainment giants such as Blumhouse and Amazon/Bethesda. This contrast makes the recognition especially impactful: an independent live theatrical production, forged through cooperation, resourcefulness, and years of trial, stood shoulder to shoulder with the biggest names in entertainment and demonstrated that emerging media can remain driven by artists.
At its core lies a simple yet clever premise: the audience ranks as one of the show’s most crucial characters. Blurring the lines between theater, film, and gaming, audiences become immersed in a narrative, engaging directly with actors whose performances shift in real time.
Uncanny Alley: A New Day originated from the Uncanny Alley universe, conceived by Rick Treweek (aka MetaRick). This groundbreaking live performance is a co-creation of Stephen Butchko and Rick Treweek’s story IP and distinctive world-building, resulting from a partnership between their respective companies, Ferryman Collective (USA) and Virtual Worlds Company (South Africa). Theatrical writing and direction were overseen by Ferryman co-founders Stephen Butchko and Deirdre V. Lyons, while Ferryman’s Technical Director Christopher Lane Davis (aka Screaming Color) optimized and broadened the environment for Uncanny Alley: A New Day, adding original visual effects, music, and performance UI.
“We know where the story begins and where it ends, but the audience determines so much about the journey between those points,” says Whitton Frank, co-founder and development director for Ferryman Collective. “We want people to feel that their presence matters. When they give us something, we accept that gift, make it part of the performance, and continue the story.”
Set in a cinematic cyberpunk world built with the Unity game engine and subsequently performed in VRChat, Uncanny Alley: A New Day opens with audiences locked up after protesting against the impending New Day update to their world. When hacker Gh0st enlists her megabyte friend Puck to set off an explosive jailbreak, audiences are thrust into a trek through a whimsical, perilous, and surprisingly human virtual environment. Two actors portray 15 characters in real time, inviting audiences to talk directly with performers and engage with the world around them as embodied characters within the story.
Since its world premiere at Venice Immersive, Uncanny Alley: A New Day has been showcased at leading international festivals such as SXSW, Raindance Immersive, NewImages Festival, and Augmented World Expo. The VRChat worlds for Ferryman Collective and Virtual Worlds Company have attracted nearly 750,000 visitors, rivaling the average audience of a Broadway production.
That equilibrium between framework and spontaneity is fundamental to Ferryman Collective’s approach to live performance in virtual reality. The audience enjoys considerable liberty to choose 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 steer attention back toward the evolving narrative. The outcome is neither a conventional play nor an open-world game.
A Different Kind of Liveness:
For Ferryman Collective, the audience’s unpredictability is not a challenge to be resolved—it is the wellspring of the performance’s vitality.
Each show arrives at the same story destination, yet no two trips are identical.
A Theatre Without a Traditional Building:
Most performances occur remotely, with actors and audiences joining from diverse locations across the globe. Participants might be standing in a bedroom, office, living room, or other familiar space when they put on a headset. Moments later, they find themselves beside strangers, friends, family members, and live performers inside the world of Uncanny Alley: A New Day. That blend of physical privacy and shared virtual presence can generate an unusual sensation of liberation. Audience members arrive from different countries and time zones, often unfamiliar with one another, and depart having experienced 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 including 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, 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 worldbuilder 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. Uncanny Alley’s first narrative experience, The Search for GhOst, was selected for Venice VR Expanded in 2021 before winning 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 passionate community of creators who have published tens of millions of unique pieces of content.
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Official Trailer: UNCANNY ALLEY: A NEW DAY
