Ms. Wolf is no fan of President Trump’s, and was relieved when it was announced that for the second year, he would not be attending the dinner.

“I thought, oh, thank God, I don’t have to hear him eat,” she said.

Still, she said there was limited value in standing in front of a crowd and cracking a bunch of knee-jerk jokes about Mr. Trump.

“The audience cheers, but that isn’t comedy,” she said. “It’s just a rally.”

Ms. Wolf said she was not interested in what she called “cool-teacher comedy — we’re going to learn and have fun at the same time.”

“You don’t want to say what people want you to say,” she added. “You want to say what people didn’t know they wanted you to say.”

Ms. Wolf, who grew up in Hershey, Pa., has been following her own muse since she quit her career in finance (where she’d worked at banks like Bear Stearns and JPMorgan Chase) to take improv classes at Upright Citizens Brigade Theater and the Pit in New York.