The University of Miami’s Jerry Herman Ring Theatre will launch its 2012-13 season early, in August, with an ambitious festival showcasing the work of Cuban playwright Virgilio Piñera.

The Virgilio @ 100 International Festival, the kick-off event of the university’s “Year of the Humanities” celebration, will present professional companies from Cuba, Spain and Miami, plus two one-act plays performed by UM students, in honor of the 100th anniversary of Piñera’s birth.

The festival begins Aug. 17-19 with Aire frío (Cold Air) performed by Cuba’s Argos Teatro. Spain’s Artes y Producciones Artísticas brings its production of Electra Garrigó Aug. 24-26. Cuba’s Teatro de la Luna performs Aug. 31-Sept. 2. Miami’s Alberto Serrraín performs Una caja de zapatos vacía (An Empty Shoebox) Sept. 7-9, and the UM cast will present False Alarm (Falsa alarma) and You Always Forget Something (Siempre se olvida algo) Sept. 14-22.

Plays will be performed in Spanish with English supertitles except the one-acts, which will be done in English with Spanish supertitles.

Also on tap for the new Ring season are Marc Camoletti’s farce Boeing Boeing Oct. 17-28, Girls vs. Boys (a collaboration with the House Theatre of Chicago in the Arsht Center’s Carnival Studio Theater) Oct. 31-Nov. 18, King Lear with guest star Dennis Krausnick (a founding member of Shakespeare and Company) Feb. 20-March 2 and a musical April 17-27.

Ticket prices are still being set; 305-284-3355, miami.edu/ring.

Christine Dolen

More free concerts

The Parks Foundation of Miami-Dade says it will expand its free Noches Tropicales/Tropical Nights concert series countywide beginning in September thanks to a $100,000 matching grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

A jazz ensemble headlined by Latin Grammy winner Amaury Gutierrez will kick off the series Sept. 21 at Miami-Dade County Auditorium, with additional free concerts to follow at the county’s Oak Grove, Country Village and Goulds parks; 305-480-1717.

Kathy Martin

Actors’ reading

Actors’ Playhouse hosts a free staged reading of Dan Leonard’s Aftermath of a Boom, winner of the theater’s Page to Stage competition, at 4 p.m. Sunday.

Artistic director David Arisco will direct David Kwiat, Michael McKeever, Laura Turnbull and Katherine Amadeo in the piece about a guy fighting his way back to health after a nervous breakdown. Leonard, Arisco, playwright Christopher Demos-Brown and directors Stuart Meltzer and Margaret Ledford will take part in a post-reading discussion.

The event at the Miracle Theatre, 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables, will be followed by a party at John Martin’s Irish Pub and Restaurant across the street; 305-444-9293, ext. 1; actorsplayhouse.org.

Christine Dolen

MCB dancer a finalist

Eighteen-year-old Miami City Ballet dancer Chloe Freytag is one of five finalists, selected from thousands of entries, in Seventeen magazine’s “Pretty Amazing” contest.

The winner, determined by online balloting at seventeen.com/fun/articles/pretty-amazing-voting, will appear on the magazine’s October cover and win a $20,000 scholarship. As a finalist, Freytag will be flown to New York for a lunch with Seventeen’s editors and actress Emma Roberts.