Inqlings: 'Idol' alum in film job in Philly

American Idol

alumna

Katharine McPhee

and

Wes Bentley

(

P2

,

American Beauty

) will be here in August to film the psychological drama

The Storyteller

.

Behind the project, first reported yesterday in the Hollywood trades, are locals Jeffrey D. Erb and Joe Nicolo of Feverpitch Pictures.

Bentley plays a writer whose life falls apart when his father dies. McPhee plays his assistant, who starts investigating whether his muse as well as narrator for his stories (Journey to the Center of the Earth's Anita Briem) is a figment of his imagination.

Locations in the 'burbs are being secured, Erb says.

FX's

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

has moved up the call time to 2:30 to 5 p.m. Friday for its public shooting on the 15th Street and JFK Boulevard side of City Hall.

Rob McElhenney, Danny DeVito

,

Charlie Day

and

Kaitlin Olson

will be there, as will Eagles

Dan Klecko

and

Mike Patterson

and WMMR's

Preston and Steve

, playing construction workers.

M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, shot here last year, will roll out a red carpet next Tuesday in New York.

Cameras will be everywhere Saturday at the Borgata in Atlantic City. The O'Jays show, at which Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff are expected, will be taped for a December PBS special, while Comedy Central will capture Jeffrey Ross' stand-up for a future telecast.

CBS's The Late Show is looking for "Stupid Pet Tricks" candidates and will be at Cutter's Mill Natural Pet Store in Cherry Hill's Barclay Farms Shopping Center from noon to 3 p.m. June 21; producers want hopefuls to book a slot at 1-888-738-8745.

WPHI-FM (100.3) has hired

Kendra G.

, most recently cohost of a morning show in Chicago, to cohost nights with

Touchtone

; she'll start Monday on the 6-to-10 p.m. shift Mondays through Saturdays.

NBC10's Vai Sikahema and former baseball player Jose Canseco are due at 11 a.m. today on The 10! Show. They're due to box July 12 at Atlantic City's Bernie Robbins Stadium.

Forward thinking is going on at 6ABC. Seeking a youthful presence on a new round of Action News promos, the brain trust put out an open call on the station's Facebook.com page, and got many candidates.

Philly-born John Zacherle (also known as Zacherley or Roland, who hosted Shock Theater on Channel 10 and later in New York) will turn up from 10 p.m. to midnight Saturday to take calls with Steve Ross, Jim Murray and Steve Friedman on the Remember When show on WPHT-AM (1210). Ross says Zacherle is pushing 90 and lives in Manhattan.

Jamie Wall, a Reinhard model and doctoral candidate at the University of the Sciences, won Philly's Next Top Model contest from CW Philly 57, which will get her to Beverly Hills and a walk-on part on the network's special, to air June 21 at 10 p.m.

Sixers coach Maurice Cheeks may be an old head of 51, but he'll still smoke you on the court. A much younger guy who joined a recent pickup game with him at the Sporting Club at the Bellevue relates that Cheeks played three 10-minute, full-court games, winning all three, and his court vision looked right out of 1983. He didn't seem to be trying much on defense, with the exception of one play. With less than a minute left, with his team up one, he stole the ball from the opposing team's best player to seal the win. He walked off the court, laughing.