Part of the 2004 Imagine Festival of Arts, Issues & Ideas, the reading will be held at 6:30 PM in the Bruno Walter Auditorium. The performance will feature a translation by Anne Carson and direction by Lawrence Sacharow, who also conceived the evening. Tomei, as Electra, will be joined on stage by Kathleen Chalfant (Clytemnestra), David Straithairn (Paedagogus), Laila Robins (the Chorus), Heather Tom (Chrysothemis), Stephen Boyer (Orestes) and Mina K. Sacharow (Iphigenia). Following the performance, Tibetan Scholar Robert Thurman will lead a discussion on violence, retribution and compassion.

The Bruno Walter Auditorium of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts is located in the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center at 111 Amsterdam Avenue. Tickets will be distributed, beginning at 4 PM the day of the performance, at the Library's entrance. For more information, call (212) 642-0142.

The Imagine Festival, Aug. 28-Sept. 2, is "designed to inspire, instigate and support civic engagement through the arts." For more information, visit www.imagine04.org.