Tony award-winning actress Idina Menzel is living a dream, performing her own songs in concert and promoting her latest CD "I Stand."

Menzel -- best known for her Broadway musical theater chops as Elphaba, "the green girl" from "Wicked" and the bisexual performance artist Maureen from "Rent" -- will perform 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Byham Theater.

Since the CD was released in January, Menzel has been on little touring stints, a week or two here, a month there, and she enjoys traveling around on a tour bus to perform her music.

"I love my musicians and my crew and I love seeing the fans in person," Menzel said by phone last week from Platteville, Wis., after a sold-out concert in Madison.

She tries to make each show different and fresh, with new material being added all the time, and there are always some surprises. In concert, Menzel performs some songs from her latest CD, her '80s childhood, Broadway shows and some fun covers.

"It's pretty eclectic. Everything is arranged in a way that it feels cohesive," she says.

Her Broadway experience -- working hard doing eight shows a week -- has prepared her well for life on the road.

"I'm able to be really spontaneous and in the moment in front of my fans," she says. "I hope they feel they're each getting to see a show that no one else gets to see."

Some concert fans know her from "Wicked," some from "Rent" -- on Broadway or the movie -- and some younger ones know her best from the film "Enchanted," in which she played Patrick "McDreamy" Dempsey's fiancee, Nancy.

Menzel wrote nine of the 10 tunes on her most recent CD, produced by Grammy Award-winner Glen Ballard.

"This album feels like a really good marriage of all the different elements in my life, all the different influences as an actress and a songwriter," she says. "Everything feels like we found one common voice and sound in this album."

One of her favorite cuts on the CD is "My Own Worst Enemy."

"The sound of the music, the production, the lyrics, feel as close to what I was envisioning in my head and heart when I was writing it," says Menzel, who has Annie Lennox and Kate Bush on her iPod. "I'm influenced by women with big voices who don't fit into a specific category but write their own music and have very emotional and dramatic voices."

Menzel performed at an event during the Democratic National Convention in Denver and campaigned for President-elect Barack Obama.

"I've been fascinated and swept up by this whole election," she said last week prior to Obama's victory. "I'm so excited. I feel like it's opening night in my own show and I haven't even met him.

"I'm excited to be part of something and feel really fortunate to be able to witness our society and our country and our world even, changing in incremental ways," says Menzel, who grew up hearing her mother talk about John F. Kennedy.

Menzel is married to actor Taye Diggs, who stars on the "Grey's Anatomy" spinoff "Private Practice" as Dr. Sam Bennett. The couple received death threats in 2004 because of their interracial marriage, and Menzel wants any children they decide to have to "grow up in a world where their diversity is celebrated."

After the tour ends, she plans to retreat home to New York City, spend the holidays with her husband and just decompress for a time. She also wants to reassure fans that while she loves touring as a recording artist, she hopes to return to Broadway.

"I'm voraciously reading [scripts] and looking at things, but it's important to me to do something original, if I can, and those things take time," she says.

"All these different chapters of my life are just that, chapters and make me who I am and I'm an artist and I need to flex my muscles in all these different places in order for me to be fulfilled."