Inqlings | Flap over a Fringe player

Has the Fringe Festival gone to pot?

The Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia's e-mail list server yesterday sizzled with comments over a one-man show by Christian Lisak called That's Why They Don't Call It Picnic.

Picnic, running Monday through Wednesday at the Adrienne, is billed as a "sometimes humorous, sometimes serious look at unexpected life detours and the lessons learned."

Lisak's life detour was federal prison, where he served nearly 10 months for his role in an operation that used bike couriers to tote marijuana around Center City. He pleaded guilty last year, the U.S. Attorney's Office said, and he was released two weeks ago.

One e-mailer complained that Lisak, an actor of some repute with such companies as the Vagabond Acting Troupe, was capitalizing on his time in stir. Others, though, defended him, countering that he'd done his time and that it wouldn't be right to ban from the arts all people who've been jailed.

(Think this will help sales?)

Lisak said he was aware of the debate but wouldn't comment.

Sports radio WPEN-AM (950) is planning a big announcement tonight - and I hear that it's a move to a local midday show, starting next week. The likely voices:

Harry Mayes

and

Jamie Yannacone

, who've been doing a night show known as

The 700 Level Sports Fanatics

. Odd man out: syndicated

Jim Rome

. Program director

Matt Nahigian

would not comment.

The city has lost another movie house. Labor Day marked the last bag of popcorn at the Orleans 8 at Bustleton and Bleigh Avenues in the Northeast. It opened in 1963, and AMC bought it in 1986. Kimco, the developer, did not return an e-mail asking comment, but supposedly the site will become a Target store.

New eatery coming Sept. 18 to the stylish room in the Philadelphia Art Alliance on Rittenhouse Square: Gardenia, a lunch spot run by Restaurant Associates. The catering giant, which administers food locally at the Art Museum, Kimmel Center and Academy of Music, also will cater the Art Alliance's events. Previous AA tenant was Le Jardin, which folded into bankruptcy last spring amid lawsuits surrounding a New Year's Eve party disaster in 2006.

The Tony Luke's name no longer hangs in New York. Luke's rep says the South Philly-based sandwich stand dissociated itself from the sandwich shop at Ninth Avenue and 42d Street over "quality issues." The New York eatery goes by Shorty's.

Staffers at the Daily Pennsylvanian are taking a cautious approach to news that Penn alumna

Claudia Cohen

- ex-wife of Philly-bred billionaire

Ron Perelman

- had willed the paper $1 million. Cohen, 56, died in June of ovarian cancer. "We're still waiting to hear from the executor of her estate," a nonetheless grateful-sounding DP executive editor

Shawn Safvi

said yesterday. "I could think of a million things we could do, no pun intended." When pressed, though, he was light on specifics.

Marlee Matlin

and

Jean Kennedy Smith

are due at the Kimmel Center on Oct. 18 for the opening ceremony of Independence Starts Here: A Festival of Disability Arts and Culture, designed to showcase the unlimited talents of artists with disabilities.

Aussie photographer Anne Geddes will discuss and sign her bio, A Labor of Love, at the Borders in King of Prussia, 7 p.m. Oct. 26.

Fran Dunphy

coaches basketball at Temple. In Tuesday's column, I had him still at Penn. Also, Eagles QB

Donovan McNabb

did attend Friday's annual house party thrown by team owners

Jeff and Christina Lurie

.