Sam Bankman-Fried On Stage: Wild Musical On FTX Founder's Time In The Same Prison As Diddy And Luigi Mangione Makes Sold-Out Debut

The story of disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has made it to live theater… sort of. 

“Luigi: The Musical,” a brazen satirical comedy that centers on the brief time Luigi Mangione, the alleged killer of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, shared the same prison facility with music mogul Diddy and Bankman-Fried, made its sold-out debut in the 49-seat Taylor Street Theater San Francisco on June 13. 

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The show, which still has at least four more sold-out repeat performance dates, uses the three characters as literary devices to critique the healthcare, entertainment and technology industries, one of the show’s creators, Caleb Zeringue, told San Francisco Chronicle in April. These are institutions that are failing in trust, Zeringue said.

“It’s about posing the questions and trying to deepen the conversation … around these more difficult and hot-button issues,” Johnny Stein, who plays Mangione, told CNN.

The show portrays Bankman-Fried as “an insufferable nepo baby,” The U.K. Independent said in a review. 

In a song titled “Bay Area Baby,” comedian Andre Margatini, who plays Bankman-Fried, sings, “I’m a Palo Alto nepo baby extraordinaire / and if you say something is illegal I just don’t care,” according to The Independent.

Bankman-Fried’s character, at one point in the play, also attempts to bribe a guard by proposing to tokenize the concept of incarceration, a jab at the cryptocurrency industry’s penchant for wanting to bring everything on-chain.

The show also makes jokes about Bankman-Fried’s awkward nerdy demeanor, a review by The San Francisco Chronicle said.

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Despite reported shabbiness, the show appeared to have been well received on its premier as the audience responded with a standing ovation.

The show’s San Francisco run is scheduled to culminate in a sold-out eighth performance at The Independent, a 500-capacity auditorium in the city. 

“Luigi: The Musical” comes as efforts to bring Bankman-Fried’s story to the small screen are gaining momentum. At the end of May, Netflix said that its planned miniseries on the rise and fall of FTX would be called “The Altruists,” featuring Anthony Boyle as Bankman-Fried and Julia Garner as Bankman-Fried’s business and sometimes romantic partner Caroline Ellison.

Filming for that series reportedly starts in the summer.

At the height of Bankman-Fried’s influence, he sat atop a $32 billion empire and was hailed as a cryptocurrency wunderkind. Just months before the eventual collapse of his empire, CNBC host Jim Cramer dubbed Bankman-Fried “the new J.P. Morgan” as he offered lines of credit to embattled cryptocurrency firms.

Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency empire collapsed in November 2022 amid revelations of fraud and mismanagement that saw customer and investor funds funneled toward personal interests. He was convicted on multiple counts of fraud and money laundering in 2023 and is serving a 25-year prison sentence.

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