Pursuits

Martin Shkreli Back in the Spotlight as Musical Theater Villain

  • Pharma bro goes to court while he is portrayed off-Broadway
  • Fictional Shkreli says if you can’t pay you shouldn’t get sick

Watch Martin Shkreli Take the Fifth and Laugh at Congress

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Characters like Martin Shkreli don’t come along every day. The fellow who jacked up the price of a cancer drug from $13.50 to $750 and then got arrestedBloomberg Terminal on unrelated fraud charges, all the while flirting with women online, boasting of his own genius and earning wall-to-wall contempt, seems more like a satirist’s villain than a live person.

He is both. On Thursday, Shkreli, wearing khaki trousers, a blue blazer and his infamous smirk, appeared in Brooklyn federal court for a scheduling conference. Watching from the public benches was an acting student on a mission -- to glean what he could from his first sighting of the 33-year-old ex-pharmaceutical executive he is to portray at a midtown theater next week.