Gregorio de Laferrère

Joining his family for a visit to Paris on the occasion of the 1889 World's Fair, he lost his father to a sudden illness while in the French capital; there, however, he became acquainted with the theatre after attending a number of performances of Molière's works by the Comédie-Française.

Returning to Argentina, he joined a friend, writer José María Miró, as an active member of the ruling National Autonomist Party, and in 1891, was elected the first Mayor of Morón, a newly established town west of Buenos Aires; taking office after a heated campaign, he reportedly arrived at City Hall for his inaugural in disguise.

Laferrère relied on his membership in the elite Officers' Association, by virtue of his family ties, to organize a public forum facing the institution's palatial headquarters, where he held forth almost daily, and heard appeals, both personal and of a policy nature, from the city's poor.

[3] Following the 1906 production of Bajo la garra ("Into the Clutches"), a tragedy dealing with the consequences of malicious gossip, Laferrère secured congressional funding for the Lavardén Dramatic Conservatory, the first of its type in Argentina.

The play, a work of social criticism dealing with a military officer's death and his nearly destitute widow's efforts to marry her three daughters off to moneyed bachelors, ran for 146 performances, and in 1921, was staged for a Paris revival.