Phelim McAleer knew he was courting controversy in mounting a play about the death of Michael Brown, but he wasn't expecting actors to quit the show.

"The FERGUSON cast are walking out because I wouldn't change the script to attack the police and because of my "conservative" politics," McAleer said via email. "It seems there is no room for diversity of opinion in the LA theatre scene."

McAleer planned to put on a staged reading of what is known as verbatim theater, a theater style developed in Great Britain where testimony from trials on inquiries is taken directly to the stage. He combed through the 5,000 pages of grand jury testimony in the Brown case and told the story, but apparently it is a story some don't like. The Los Angeles Times spoke to Phillip Casnoff, one of the actors that walked out.

"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."

Casanoff and four others have quit but McAleer, who was funding the play through a crowd funding campaign, says the show will go on.

Hear my interview with Phelim, recorded before the walkout, here. Interview starts at the 37:29 mark.