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EN EL TIEMPO DE LAS MARIPOSA/
IN THE TIME OF THE BUTTERFLIES
AT GALA

The Mirabal sisters versus Trujillo, the oppressive dictator of  the Dominican Republic is history.  In the Time of the Butterflies— a play by Caridad Svich, based on the novel of award-winning author Julia Álvarez— is the fictionalized recollection of the surviving sister, Dedé. 

Broselianda Hernández is the older Dedé, who tells the story of which she is part, and which is played by Catherine Núñez as young Dedé,.  Karen Romero is Mujer Americana, a writer whose family left the Dominican Republic when she was 10.

Together they weave the story of their lives into that of   Dedé’s sisters —Alina Robert as Minerva,  Domínguez del Corral and Lorena Sabogal, as Patria.  

 What Dedé  tells a young writer of her memories of not just what happens but what she remembers.  Together the sisters  as they grow up, they  develop and share their ideas on love and life as they are aware of the politically oppressive world they live in.

As the sisters become stronger in their beliefs, they are more determined to bring down the regime.  They  would  who used the  code name “the butterflies” as they inspired resistance.   They faced hardships and imprisonments until eventually they were  brutally murdered, along with their driver,  on an isolated road on the way to visit their husbands in jail on November 25, 1960.

Dede did not go with them that day.  Fearful of what would befall in those dangerous times, she is the one that was left to grieve and to tell the story. 

Delbis Cardona plays all the male roles:  the DJ,  Leo, Trujillo and their driver Rufino. 


A beautiful heart breaking story—not to miss  GALA’s production  In the Time of the Butterflies --  through May 13, 2018.

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