He appeared in the 1988-89 horror film The Dead Come Home.
[1][2] In the 1995 coming-of-age short film Alkali, Iowa, which is part of Boys Life 2, the 1997 compilation of short films about young gay men, Cerna portrayed Jack Gudmanson,[3] a leading character who is coming to terms of his sexuality and learns about his father's secret past.
[4] Cerna was a columnist for the LGBT-related newspaper Washington Blade in 2002–05.
[5] He wrote and performed a leading role of his semi-autobiographical play Not as Cute as Picture, whose story focuses on a "young gay man's pursuit of purpose[,] often obstructed by [the crisis] of AIDS," set in 1994.
[5] The play was nominated in the 14th Annual GLAAD Media Awards (2003) for Outstanding Theatre: Washington D. C.[6] He wrote another play Problem Cat: A Love Story.