A Cape Town-based virtual reality theatre production is competing for one of the entertainment industry’s most prestigious awards, putting South African digital innovation on the global stage.
Uncanny Alley: A New Day, created through a collaboration between Cape Town’s Virtual Worlds Company and Los Angeles non-profit Ferryman Collective, has been nominated in the Outstanding Emerging Media Program category at the Primetime Emmy Awards. The production faces competition from just two other nominees: Blumhouse Enhanced Cinema and The World of Fallout.
The winner will be announced on Saturday, 5 September, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.
Theatre inside a video game
Unlike traditional theatre, this production unfolds entirely within VRChat, a social virtual reality platform where audiences don headsets instead of taking seats in an auditorium.
The experience drops participants into the role of escaped detainees running from Adaptive Learning Industries, a corporation planning to wipe its citizens’ memories clean. Working alongside two professional actors who portray 15 different characters in real time, audience members must dodge capture and ultimately choose whether to flee Uncanny Alley or remain to defend it.
Every performance plays out differently, shaped by the choices participants make.
From lockdown project to international recognition
South African artist and worldbuilder Rick Treweek, who goes by MetaRick in virtual reality circles, created Uncanny Alley in 2020 during the country’s strict initial Covid-19 lockdowns. With in-person gatherings impossible, he built a cyberpunk back alley where people could stand beside each other again, even if only digitally.
The universe’s first narrative experience, The Search for Gh0st, was selected for Venice VR Expanded in 2021 and claimed the Spirit of Raindance Award in 2022.
Conversations between Treweek and Ferryman Collective in 2024 sparked the idea for a live theatrical performance within the universe. Rather than using the existing environment, Virtual Worlds Company constructed an entirely new world featuring more than 30 environments designed to run on standalone Meta Quest headsets.
Ferryman founders Stephen Butchko and Deirdre V. Lyons wrote and directed the production, while technical director Christopher Lane Davis, who works as Screaming Color, contributed visual effects, music and live show controls.
“Ferryman brought something to the Alley I could not have built on my own: live performance,” Treweek said. “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.”
Award trail and local roots
Uncanny Alley: A New Day premiered at Venice Immersive 2024, where it won the Fanheart3 XR Fan Experience Award. Since then, it has been presented at SXSW, Raindance Immersive, NewImages Festival, Augmented World Expo and SIGGRAPH. The production also secured the XR Immersive Award at Kaohsiung Film Festival in Taiwan and Gold at the XRMust Awards.
Treweek, who grew up in Kokstad and now lives in Kommetjie, said the industry recognition has helped him overcome self-doubt about his creative vision.
“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,” he said. “But eventually I realised it’s my weird moonlighting projects that bring me the most success.”
For South Africans interested in immersive content creation, Treweek recommends looking into Electric South’s labs. “They’ve done more for immersive content on the continent than anyone else,” he said. “And remove the fear. Whatever you break, you can build again.”
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