New York, New York -- if you can make 'em laugh there ...
OK, so maybe you won't be able to make 'em laugh anywhere, but you can have confidence you're at the top of your game.
"New York has always been a part of the country that every comic wants to play," says Los Angeles-born D.L. Hughley, whose 30-city "Unapologetic" tour includes a stop at this year's New York Comedy Festival. "Vegas and New York -- you feel like more of a comic when you play there."
Hughley is one of the many comics who'll be playing the fourth annual New York Comedy Festival starting Tuesday.
Mario Cantone, another comic slated to perform, says he never even tried to take his flamboyantly gay act on the road.
"I attempted L.A. when I first got out of college. They were looking at me like I had 12 heads," says Cantone, on the phone from Vancouver, where he was shooting back-to-back episodes of "Men in Trees." "New York for me was the only way to do it."
Cantone, who's also in the middle of filming the eagerly awaited "Sex and the City" movie, will somehow find time to do two shows at Carolines on Broadway.
That storied comedy club is really responsible for giving birth to the festival.
"I got the idea of doing this after I did a 20th-anniversary special for Carolines at Carnegie Hall ... [featuring] people who had kind of graduated from my club," festival founder Caroline Hirsch says of that March 2003 event. "It was so much fun and such a success. I got so many compliments about putting together so much talent in one night."
This year's comedy festival, Hirsch says, has "a little bit of something for everyone."
Performers include Joy Behar, Susie Essman, Robin Williams, Sarah Silverman, Louis CK, Denis Leary, Adam Ferrara, John Pinette, Artie Lange, Damon Wayans and Bill Maher. The eclectic events include fund-raisers, improv shows, a "Scrubs" farewell tour and "Andy Borowitz Countdown to '08: Only 363 Days Left," a politically pointed show with special guests Alec Baldwin, Mo Rocca and Arianna Huffington.
