'Ferguson’ Play Cast Members Quit After Learning It Tells Darren Wilson's Story

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Veteran actor Philip Casnoff hadn't read the full script yet when he arrived for
the first rehearsal of "Ferguson," a play chronicling the shooting of Michael
Brown by a Missouri police officer.

Casnoff thought he knew what the play, set for a four-day staged reading
starting Sunday at the Odyssey Theater, would be about: the wilderness of
testimony the grand jury navigated while investigating the day Officer Darren
Wilson fatally shot the unarmed 18-year-old. Casnoff presumed a variety of
viewpoints, the fog of truth.

Then he read the script, which tells the story that Brown didn't have his hands
up and that he charged at Wilson.

Now, in a case of art imitating life, the play is experiencing the kind of ill will
and mistrust that erupted from the city it attempts to portray. Part of the
13-member cast is in revolt — Casnoff and four others have quit — as the
playwright and actors are locked in a fundamental disagreement over how
to tell the story of Brown's death.

Though the grand jury declined to indict Wilson after some witnesses and
physical evidence supported his account of events, the tone of the play
shocked some actors.

"It felt like the purpose of the piece was to show, 'Of course he was not
indicted — here's why,'" Casnoff said. He said that after he learned who
the play's author was, Casnoff, who describes himself as "very liberal,
left-wing-leaning," thought, "Whoa, this is not the place for me to be."

Through testimony taken from grand jury transcripts, the play ends with
a witness telling a prosecutor that Wilson was justified in killing Brown.
The audience is then supposed to vote on whether Wilson should have
been indicted.

The cast members who quit questioned the motivations of the playwright,
Phelim McAleer.

McAleer, a conservative filmmaker and journalist from Ireland now living in
Marina del Rey, said he's just interested in the truth.

"The truth is the truth. If it doesn't fit in with their beliefs, they need to change
their beliefs," said McAleer, who declined to say whether Wilson should have
been indicted but said his research shows the hands-up claim is bogus. "All the
people who testified that he had his hands up, it was pretty much demolished
in grand jury testimony."

If the rest of the decidedly more liberal cast resigns — some actors are leaning
that way — McAleer said he'll find a new cast. He also hopes to put the show
on YouTube and bring the production to Ferguson itself.

"There's got to be some actors in L.A. who aren't scared of controversy," he
said
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