The New York International Fringe Festival may be history, but those suffering from fringe withdrawal can check out the nearby Philadelphia Fringe Festival, kicking off Labor Day weekend. Featuring almost 200 theatre, dance, music and puppetry shows by an assembly of local, national and international artists, the festival runs Aug. 31-Sept. 15.

More than 100 shows comprise the theatre lineup, which includes a Hungarian production of The Cherry Orchard and a play that ponders what Hugh Hefner's heaven would look like.

Highlights include:

* New York performance artist Sarah Jones' Surface Transit, her one woman, multi-character show about intolerance.

* Pig Iron Theatre Company's Shut Eye, directed by Open Theatre founder Joseph Chaikin, which explores the mysterious state between sleeping and waking * This Mansion Is a Hole: Hugh Hefner Throws a Party at the Center of the Universe, from New Paradise Laboratories, about what heaven would look if Hefner and his buddies designed it.

* The British comedy duo The Mighty Boosh, playing postal workers on a journey through the North Pole in Artic Boosh.

* The Cherry Orchard, presented by the members of Hungary's Moving House (Mozgo Haz) company in their native language

* Olivier Award-winning British performer Ken Campbell recounting tales of an often-overlooked art in the one-man show The History of Comedy Part I: Ventriloquism.

Tickets range from $10 to $18. For reservations and more information, call (215) 413-1318 or visit www.pafringe.org.

— By Diane Snyder