Entertainment

Comedy festival to lead with its Whit

The New York Comedy Festival doesn’t start till November, but the lineup came out today — topped by Kathy Griffin, Wanda Sykes, Bill Maher, Jim Jefferies, Bill Burr, Nick Swardson, Anthony Jeselnik and Whitney Cummings, plus a conversation between Larry David and Showtime’s “Inside Comedy” producer David Steinberg.

Cummings, who created the sitcom “2 Broke Girls,” says her show may surprise people who think they know her.

“It’ll be a very different vibe from what people would expect — vulnerable,” says the star of the now-defunct “Whitney” and the even shorter-lived talk show “Love You, Mean It.”

“I’ve been broken down and shattered by the media,” she says, half-jokingly. “The house of cards I called life has blown away. The last two years have been emotionally traumatic.

“But from adversity comes, hopefully, good comedy!”

The 30-year-old comic says the New York festival, which turns 10 this year, has reversed a stance of hers: “I had kind of a no-festival policy for a long time. I don’t want to do comedy in a tent at 4:30 with [the band] the Postal Service playing next to me. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to do comedy inside, at night.”

But this one, she says, “has gotten sexy. The venues are amazing!”

Those venues include Carnegie Hall, the Beacon Theatre, the Theater at Madison Square Garden and Town Hall, where Cummings will perform Nov. 8.

“Performing in NYC is liberating,”she says, “and yet so intimidating — you’re up against so much entertainment. It’s like, ‘I chose to come see you. I could be watching Alan Cumming kill himself onstage right now in “Macbeth,” or watching people flying in “Pippin,” but I’m here.’ So I better make it worth their while.”

As for her fellow headliners, Cummings says she’s particularly eager to see Sykes, a personal hero.

“I’m such a big fan — I’m a geek about her,” she gushes. “I listen to her on ‘Crank Yankers,’ like, once a week. So I’ll go to her show.”

Comic and “SNL” writer John Mulaney, who’s appeared on “Love You, Mean It,” also gets props from Cummings. “He’s already one of the best performers of our generation,” she says.

As for the old debate about whether women are funny, Cummings says it feels roughly as relevant as rotary-dial phones. “The top three people on my speed dial are successful comics: Kathy Griffin, Lisa Lampanelli, Chelsea Handler,” she says. “So the idea of women not being successful — it’s like your grandfather being like, ‘Hey, there’s a person of color in our office now!’ ”

So ubiquitous are female comics now, she says, that soon “the dialogue will be, ‘Tell me, is it hard to be a man in comedy?’ ”

The New York Comedy Festival runs Nov. 6 to 10; tickets go on sale today. For a full lineup, see nycomedyfestival.com.