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Chatting happily away on the phone, Laura Bell Bundy sounds remarkably stress-free -- which is a truly remarkable accomplishment for a young woman about to move into her new apartment in Nashville while also preparing to return briefly to New York for two very high-profile gigs: she'll appear at Feinstein's at the Loews Regency in a show called Just Me on October 30 and November 1, and make a one-night appearance with the New York Pops at Carnegie Hall in New York Songs: A Love Letter to the City on November 7.

Of course, having spent more than two years starring as Elle Woods in the musical Legally Blonde, for which she earned a Tony Award nomination, was certainly good training for steady nerves. Moreover, Bundy has been a professional actress since she was a child and made her Off-Broadway debut in Ruthless at age 10. Still, she's not as sanguine as she first sounds. "Who isn't intimidated by the thought of being on the stage of Carnegie Hall for the first time?" she says, with a laugh. "It's almost a spiritual journey; it's the mecca of music. Plus, these one-night shows are hard. On Broadway, you're used to doing things hundreds of time before your opening night. Here, you barely have a dress rehearsal."

But Bundy had plenty of good reasons for taking the gig. "I get to perform again with Linda Hart, who played my mother in Hairspray and who is like my second mother," she says. "And I've known Ken Laub, who wrote all the songs for the second part of the evening, for a long time; in fact, he asked me about a year ago to do this concert. But as much as I'm looking forward to singing his stuff, I'm really excited that in the first half of the show I get to sing 'The Joint is Really Jumpin' Down at Carnegie Hall,' which was made famous by Judy Garland. I love Judy; in fact, I really love imitating Judy, but I don't think I'll actually do that until the after-party. I learned to sing by mimicking people, which is why I'm something of a vocal chameleon."

Her gig at Feinstein's -- originally scheduled to be a pairing with country singer Crystal Gayle (who took ill last week) -- will be a mix of Broadway and original material. Indeed, since leaving Legally Blonde in July, Bundy has concentrated almost exclusively on songwriting and teaching. So much so, she had to eventually take a little time just for herself. "It wasn't until a few weeks ago, that I realized I needed to escape from the world for a little bit," she recalls. "So I sort of took a vow of silence for a week or so, and I realized it was the first time I had finally broken away from Elle Woods. I'm finally beginning to feel more like myself. But I'll probably never truly separate myself from Elle. The similarities between Elle and me are probably why I got the job in the first place."

She's also still on a Broadway body clock, going to bed at 3am -- which is why she is finding some difficulty living in a town where residents routinely wake at 7 and expect her to meet with other songwriters at 11am. But that's the nature of her new lifestyle, and she's not complaining. "I'm not just writing songs for me and my next CD, but for other artists," she says.

"Doing this work is a dream I've had all my life, and it's just as overwhelming having it really happen as starring on Broadway in Legally Blonde," she adds. "I always say that my basket had two eggs in it, and the Broadway one just happened to hatch first. Of course, I will come back to Broadway some day; actually, I'd love to just do a straight play for three months. And ultimately, my goal is to just drop dead on stage. That's just who I am."