Immersive Theatre Meets Technological Innovation: Moment Factory’s Collaboration with Third Rail Projects

August, 2025

In December 2024, Moment Factory welcomed Third Rail Projects, a New York-based company known for its pioneering approach to immersive and site-specific theatre, to its Montreal studio. Reimagining contemporary performance through participative storytelling, community engagement, and a focus on audience experience, Third Rail Projects collaborated with us through the contribution of Zach Morris (Co-Artistic Director), Marissa Nielsen-Pincus (Associate Artistic Director) and Edward Rice (Associate Managing Director).

What made this collaboration so compelling was the very different nature of our respective portfolios, Moment Factory’s work often unfolding in large-scale public settings and Third Rail Projects' creations crafted for more intimate spaces with a highly curated audience journey. To begin creating, we first needed to find a shared language. A joint workshop centered on GenAI provided space to explore that connection, not by focusing on GenAI itself, but by using it as a creative tool in the context of immersive, location-based performance centered on audience participation. It offered a way to test ideas, prototype quickly, and discover common ground.

Our approach was intentionally designed to support a smooth learning curve, allowing our collaborators to gradually integrate new tools into their creative process. Rather than aiming to produce a finished piece, the workshop focused on validating that our GenAI tools were thoughtfully designed to eliminate technological friction. We structured the week around key areas of exploration: scenography, narrative, audience participation, and performance, giving the Third Rail Projects’ team space to gain ease and confidence within this complex technical setup and ultimately focus fully on creative exploration.This created space for hands-on experimentation, enabling artists to test techniques, build familiarity, and explore how GenAI might expand both the means and scope of Third Rail Projects productions.

As the week unfolded, the creative exchange deepened. Beyond experimenting with concepts, a big part of the process involved understanding the tools themselves: how they function, how long they take to execute, and how their constraints can lead to more intentional creative choices. Rather than using technology for its novelty or buzz factor, we focused on how it could meaningfully support the emotional and narrative goals of the work.

Another exciting discovery was how GenAI enabled the team to draft ideas in full resolution, almost instantly. This immediacy created a more direct link between idea and output, opening new doors for engaging audiences in the process.

This collaboration encouraged us to step outside traditional production pipelines, which can often feel too rigid or slow for emerging partnerships. It invited a more exploratory, iterative process. While Moment Factory approaches creation through a technological lens, crafting large-scale, multisensory experiences for broad audiences, Third Rail Projects develops analog, human-scale encounters rooted in intimacy and presence. Working together allowed us to question assumptions, share methods, and find new ways to connect creative tools with meaningful audience impact.

This week reminded us that innovation doesn’t come from tools alone, it grows out of meaningful conversations. It also highlighted the importance of fostering environments where diverse creative voices can come together to experiment and collectively imagine the future of entertainment.

Immersive Theatre Meets Technological Innovation: Moment Factory’s Collaboration with Third Rail Projects

Here is a selection of projects that illustrate what we can create together.