Work
Merced's numerous professional credits include acting in and directing more than 50 theatrical productions including El bolero fue mi ruina (actor), El apagón/The Blackout (actor), Baile Cangrejero (actor), Blanco (director), El huésped vacío (director), and Brides. Creative collaborations in both dance and theater include premieres with Eduardo Alegría, Pablo Cabrera, Antonio Martorell, and Arthur Aviles.
Merced's commitment to AIDS prevention led him to spearhead Pregones's El abrazo/The Embrace from 1987 to 1993. 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.
In 2002, Merced created the Asunción Playwrights Project as a way to "showcase the work of Latino playwrights exploring issues of difference and transformation at the limits of queer identity." The project includes a play competition, public readings of up to four plays (followed by discussions with the audience), and workshop productions of the winning play. 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).
Merced's performance in Pregones’s play El bolero fue mi ruina (1997–2002, restaged 2005) has received significant critical reception. In this one-man show (with live musical accompaniment), Merced portrays two Puerto Rican characters: Loca, an incarcerated transvestite bolero singer, and Nene Lindo, her boyfriend, whom she murdered. This Spanish-language play was directed by Rosalba Rolón. It is an adaptation of a short story by the deceased Puerto Rican gay author Manuel Ramos Otero.
Merced has also collaborated with the Puerto Rican gay scholar Luis Aponte-Parés in documenting the history of gay Puerto Ricans in New York City and Boston. He has spoken extensively about his gay activism in a 2001 interview with Arnaldo López.
Read more about this topic: Jorge Merced
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