He has trained, performed, and directed throughout the U.S. and abroad in Brazil, Chile, Cuba, France, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Slovakia, and Spain.

[6] This AIDS community education project was based on the theories of Augusto Boal and has been carefully analyzed by the Puerto Rican scholar and actress Eva C. Vásquez in her book Pregones Theatre (2003), which includes an interview with Merced.

[9] Winning playwrights have included Gonzalo Aburto (2003), Ricardo Bracho and Pablo García Gámez (2004), Charles Rice-González (2005), Chuy Sanchez (2006), and Aravind Adyanthaya (2007).

[4][5] In this one-man show (with live musical accompaniment), Merced portrays two Puerto Rican characters: Loca, an incarcerated transvestite bolero singer, and Nene Lindo [Pretty Boy], her boyfriend, whom she murdered.

As a child, Merced recalls that he would watch the shows of Antonio Pantojas, transformist, actor, comedian, dancer, and pioneer in drag on a Puerto Rican television channel.