Uncanny Alley - A New Day — South African‑US VR Theatre Co‑Production Among Three Nominees for Primetime Emmy Outstanding Emerging Media Program

Uncanny Alley: A New Day , a collaboration between Cape Town immersive studio Virtual Worlds Company and Los Angeles company Ferryman Collective, is one of just three nominees in the Outstanding Emerging Media Program category at the Primetime Emmys (Image supplied)

A collaboration between Cape Town immersive studio Virtual Worlds Company and Los Angeles company Ferryman Collective, the virtual reality theatre production is performed inside VRChat, a social virtual reality platform.

The live play is set in Uncanny Alley, an original virtual universe created by South African artist and worldbuilder Rick Treweek, known in virtual reality as MetaRick.

Audiences become escaped detainees fleeing Adaptive Learning Industries, a corporation preparing to erase its citizens’ memories.

Alongside a pair of professional actors playing 15 characters in real time, audience members must escape imprisonment, evade capture and ultimately decide whether to abandon Uncanny Alley or stay and fight for their home. No two performances are the same.

The idea of a live theatrical performance

Treweek created Uncanny Alleyin 2020, during South Africa’s strict initial Covid-19 lockdowns. Unable to gather in person, he built a place where people could stand next to one another again - a cyberpunk back alley of the internet.

The universe’s first narrative experience, The Search for Gh0st, was selected for Venice VR Expanded in 2021 and won the Spirit of Raindance Award in 2022.

In 2024, Treweek and Ferryman Collective, a Los Angeles non-profit VR theatre company, started discussing the idea of a live theatrical performance inside the universe.

Rather than stage the show in the existing world, Virtual Worlds Company built an entirely new one for the production: more than 30 environments, engineered to run on standalone Meta Quest headsets.

A voice and a body in real time

Ferryman founders Stephen Butchko and Deirdre V. Lyons wrote and directed the immersive theatre experience.

Ferryman technical director Christopher Lane Davis, who works as Screaming Color, contributed original visual effects and music, as well as helping to control the live show.

“Ferryman brought something to the Alley I could not have built on my own: live performance,” says Treweek.

“The most extraordinary part of this for me has been watching actors step inside characters I had drawn and lived with for years, and give them a voice and a body in real time.

"They walk into that world night after night and make it breathe. What I brought was the universe. This nomination belongs to both halves of that, and it would not exist without either.”

Wining awards

Uncanny Alley: A New Day premiered in competition at Venice Immersive 2024, where it won the Fanheart3 XR Fan Experience Award.

It has since been presented at SXSW, Raindance Immersive, NewImages Festival, Augmented World Expo and SIGGRAPH, winning the XR Immersive Award at Kaohsiung Film Festival in Taiwan and Gold at the XRMust Awards, among other accolades.

The industry recognition for Uncanny Alley, and before that for The Lost Botanist, has helped Treweek embrace his weirdness.

Too weird

“My biggest struggle's always been my conditioning that my stuff is too weird, and no one will like it, so it's only for me,” says Treweek. “But eventually I realised it’s my weird moonlighting projects that bring me the most success.”

Treweek, who grew up in Kokstad and now lives in Kommetjie, will be in the audience at Los Angeles’ Peacock Theater when the winner is announced on Saturday, 5 September 2026.

For South Africans interested in following in his footsteps, he recommends looking into Electric South’s labs. “They've done more for immersive content on the continent than anyone else,” he says.

“And remove the fear. Whatever you break, you can build again.“

It is competing against Blumhouse Enhanced Cinema and The World of Fallout.