The University of Iowa Department of Theatre Arts will present the 2012 Iowa New Play Festival, the most ambitious new-play festival in collegiate theater, with readings, staged productions, and discussion from Monday, April 30, through Saturday, May 5, in the UI Theatre Building.

The University of Iowa Chamber Orchestra and the All-University String Orchestra will share a free concert at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, April 29, in the Riverside Recital Hall.

The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop will present free readings by four of its faculty members in events at 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 25, and Friday, April 27, in the Frank Conroy Reading Room of the Dey House. The Wednesday reading will feature fiction writer Kevin Brockmeier and poet Jonathan Thirkield.

The University of Iowa Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of William LaRue Jones and featuring internationally recognized mezzo-soprano Katharine Goeldner, will perform works by Berlioz and Richard Strauss at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 2, in the Main Lounge of the Iowa Memorial Union.

Live literary streams April 24-29 on writinguniversity.org will feature two Poetry Month events and the book launch of a former University of Iowa engineering student whose comments to the Iowa Legislature made him an instant celebrity.

The Chamber Winds of the University of Iowa School of Music will present a free concert at 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 25, in the Riverside Recital Hall.

Brazilian pianist Cristina Capparelli Gerling, a guest of the University of Iowa School of Music, will present a free lecture-recital, "In search of creative performance: a study of Chopin's Barcarolle op. 60," at 3 p.m. Saturday, April 28, in the Riverside Recital Hall.

Linda Maxson will step down as dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the end of this fiscal year. A celebration of Maxson's 15 years as CLAS dean will be held from 4:30 to 6 p.m., Monday, April 23, on the Pentacrest in front of Old Capitol.

University of Iowa theater alumna TannFrederick, actress and philanthropist, is the winner of the 2012 CineCause Award at the Julien Dubuque Film Festival.

Leah Price, professor of English and chair of history and literature at Harvard University, will discuss force-reading in Victorian Britain at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, April 19.

Organist Dean Billmeyer, a guest of the University of Iowa School of Music, will present a free recital at 4 p.m. Sunday, April 22, in the Congressional United Church of Christ.

The International Chemistry Olympiad will be held in July in Washington, D.C.