Vivarium Studio debuts on the Mac App Store, bringing digital spatial previsualization to theatre, immersive entertainment, and creative production teams.
NEW YORK — July 2026 — While digital collaboration tools have transformed industries ranging from architecture to game development, live performance has remained surprisingly dependent on paper floor plans, sketches, and in-person communication. Vivarium Interactive, a startup founded by former Apple software engineer Roy Li and Columbia University theatre producer Lucia Zhu, aims to change that with the launch of Vivarium Studio, a collaborative spatial previsualization platform now available on the Mac App Store.
Designed specifically for theatre, immersive entertainment, and live performance, Vivarium Studio provides a shared three-dimensional workspace where directors, designers, producers, stage managers, educators, and creative collaborators can explore productions before rehearsals, venue builds, or installations begin. Rather than replacing existing creative processes, the platform digitizes one of the earliest stages of production, allowing teams to visualize, iterate, and communicate ideas together long before they enter the rehearsal room.
The founders believe that live entertainment has largely missed the wave of collaborative software that has transformed neighboring creative industries. While filmmakers rely on storyboards and previsualization tools and architects work within sophisticated digital environments, many theatre productions continue to communicate spatial ideas through paper floor plans, sketches, rehearsal notes, and conversations around a table. Vivarium Studio was created to bridge that gap with an intuitive platform built specifically for the collaborative nature of live performance.
Unlike traditional CAD or 3D modeling software, Vivarium Studio prioritizes accessibility and rapid creative exploration over technical complexity. It enables creative teams to prototype performance environments, experiment with blocking and performer movement, test audience configurations, organize production references, and develop a shared understanding of a production without requiring advanced modeling experience.
Vivarium Interactive was founded by Roy Li, whose engineering career includes nearly a decade at Apple, and Lucia Zhu, an MFA Theatre Management & Producing alumna of Columbia University whose professional experience spans theatre and immersive productions in both the United States and China. Bringing together backgrounds in software engineering and live performance, the founders created Vivarium Studio after recognizing a common challenge faced by creative teams: ensuring that everyone is imagining the same production.
“Every creative department imagines a production differently,” said Lucia Zhu, Co-Creator of Vivarium Studio. “Throughout my years producing theatre and immersive experiences, I often wished there was a simple way for directors, designers, stage managers, and producers to explore the same space together before rehearsals began. We built Vivarium Studio to become that shared a creative workspace.”
Beyond traditional theatre production, the platform is also designed for immersive entertainment, location-based experiences, theatre education, devised performance, and other forms of spatial storytelling where collaboration begins long before audiences arrive. The company says the product was shaped through ongoing conversations with theatre practitioners throughout its development, with future updates continuing to be informed by feedback from creative professionals.
“In a world increasingly filled with fast-generated content, we believe theatre and shared in-person experiences are becoming more valuable than ever,” said Roy Li, Founder of Vivarium Interactive. “Our hope is that Vivarium Studio enables creators to collaborate more effectively, experiment more freely, and bring stronger ideas into the rehearsal room. If it helps even a few artists create more meaningful experiences for audiences, then we’ve accomplished what we set out to do.”
Vivarium Studio is the first public release from Vivarium Interactive, reflecting the company’s broader mission to develop creative technologies that support storytelling, collaboration, and learning across entertainment and education. Future development will continue expanding production workflows, collaboration capabilities, and creative resources based on feedback from theatre professionals, educators, and immersive creators.
Vivarium Studio is available now as a free download on the Mac App Store.
For more information, visit https://vivarium-interactive.com.
About Vivarium Interactive
Vivarium Interactive Inc. is a creative technology startup developing collaborative storytelling platforms and production tools for entertainment and education. Founded by software engineer Roy Li and theatre producer Lucia Zhu, the company combines software engineering with professional theatre practice to build technologies that help creative teams plan, collaborate, and tell stories together. Vivarium Studio is the company’s first product, bringing intuitive spatial previsualization to theatre, immersive entertainment, and live performance professionals.
