The Uncanney Alley team at the 81st Venice Biennale
Gh0st, located in her hacker lair, directs the just-freed prisoners to power up the Electronic Pulse Generator in a last-ditch effort to revive her companion, Atom.
Defying the Odds, Uncanny Alley: A New Day this artist led team creates performances that can never happen exactly the same way twice.
It is co-creation, but with a strong theatrical foundation underneath it, the script protects the story. The audience makes it alive.”— -Deirdre V Lyons, Ferryman Collective Artistic DirectorLOS ANGELES, CA, UNITED STATES, September 6, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — In a stunning turn of events, Uncanny Alley: A New Day—a small-scale, artist-driven immersive experience produced by 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 originated from a modest, artist-led nonprofit collective specializing in live VR theater. It competed in the Outstanding Emerging Media Program category against projects backed by major entertainment giants such as Blumhouse and Amazon/Bethesda. That disparity makes the recognition particularly impactful: an independent live theatrical production, crafted through teamwork, resourcefulness, and years of trial and error, stood shoulder to shoulder with some of the biggest names in entertainment and demonstrated that emerging media remains a space driven by artists.
At the core of the production lies a deceptively straightforward concept: the audience becomes one of the most essential characters in the show. Existing at the intersection of theater, film, and gaming, viewers are woven into a storyline, engaging directly with actors whose performances change dynamically in the moment.
Uncanny Alley: A New Day evolved from the Uncanny Alley universe, conceived by Rick Treweek (also known as MetaRick). This groundbreaking live performance is co-created by 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). The theatrical writing and directing were led by Ferryman co-founders Stephen Butchko and Deirdre V. Lyons, while Ferryman’s Technical Director Christopher Lane Davis (aka Screaming Color) refined and broadened Uncanny Alley: A New Day’s environment, incorporating 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 realm built with the Unity game engine and then performed within VRChat, Uncanny Alley: A New Day opens with audiences imprisoned after protesting against the impending New Day update to their world. When hacker Gh0st enlists her megabyte companion, Puck, to set off an explosive jailbreak, viewers are swept into a journey through a whimsical, hazardous, and unexpectedly human virtual landscape. Two actors portray 15 characters in real time, inviting spectators to talk directly with performers and engage with the environment around them as embodied characters inside the narrative.
Since its world premiere at Venice Immersive, Uncanny Alley: A New Day has been featured at major 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 number comparable to the typical audience of a Broadway production.
That interplay of structure and spontaneity lies at the heart of Ferryman Collective’s approach to live performance in virtual reality. The audience enjoys considerable freedom to choose where to look, what to explore, when to speak, and how deeply to engage. Rather than constraining that agency, the production leverages theatrical and environmental design to subtly steer attention back toward the unfolding story. The result 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 overcome. It is the very source of the performance’s liveness.
Every show 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 diverse locations around the globe. Participants may be standing in a bedroom, office, living room, or other familiar setting when they put on a headset. Moments later, they find themselves standing beside strangers, friends, family members, and live performers inside the world of Uncanny Alley: A New Day. That blend of physical solitude and shared virtual presence can foster a distinctive sense of liberation. Audience members arrive from different countries and time zones, often without knowing one another, and leave 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 nonprofit VR theatre company that creates award-winning immersive experiences using interactive media. Past projects include 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 has been featured by Forbes, The Hollywood Reporter, IndieWire, No Proscenium, Loud and Clear Reviews, and XR Must.
VIRTUAL WORLDS COMPANY is an immersive studio based in Cape Town that operates globally, led by artist and worldbuilder Rick Treweek, also known as MetaRick. The company builds virtual worlds that people can enter, 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 chosen for Venice VR Expanded in 2021 before winning the Spirit of Raindance Award in 2022. A New Day, a collaboration with Ferryman Collective, represents the most recent chapter of the Uncanny Alley universe.
VRCHAT is an ever-expanding virtual universe fueled by a passionate community that creates and shares virtual worlds, avatars, and interactive experiences. Since its founding in 2015, the platform has grown to millions of users and boasts a dedicated 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
