Via The Daily Telegraph

• Who: Performer Johanna Allen has starred in many shows, including The Sound of Music, Wicked and Phantom Of The Opera. She has written her own show, The Songs That Got Away, which plays in Sydney next week
• Where: Two-storey home in Waterloo she shares with a friend
• Favourite thing: Fresh flowers. When my home has flowers I always feel happier. There’s something about the ritual of selecting them and the scent they give a room that makes it a home
• Inspiration: In terms of my space, home, light and space and a joyousness around me is very important. In terms of how I live, this is a quote that came from someone my mum met: Get lots of sleep, eat lots of broccoli and never be a victim. And I’d add to that never, ever, ever give up and also have lots of fun and be a little bit naughty
• Home is: Where my loved ones are, it’s where I can sit back and feel entirely comfortable. Home is good food and lots of laughter

PERFORMER Johanna Allen has been living in Waterloo for 2½ years but admits half of her possessions remain in storage.

“I dream about the day my furniture is all in the one spot,” she says.

“There is a French provincial table I bought in Melbourne that is still in Melbourne.

“My piano is one of my favourite things and it’s currently in my parent’s hallway in Adelaide.”

But she does have a ladder that she uses as her bookcase.

“There’s something about a ladder that represents possibility to me,” she says.

“And I can never have enough words in my life.”

Johanna lives with a friend in Waterloo in a two-level apartment and Johanna has the upper storey.

“I have come and gone with various jobs but there’s something lovely about coming back to this lovely little oasis in the middle of inner city Sydney,” Johanna says.

“I’m the kind of person who needs to roll out of bed and have a coffee and I can do that and it’s been a very joyous place to live.”

Recently Johanna has been away from home and on tour, starring as Sister Sophia in The Sound of Music and she will take on the role of Mother Abbess for the Perth season, later this month.

But first she will take to the stage in Sydney in a one-woman show she wrote herself called The Songs That Got Away, featuring the music of American composer Harold Arlen.

Johanna says she wrote the one-woman show to highlight the work of the little-known man behind songs such as Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Stormy Weather and It’s Only a Paper Moon.

“He wrote songs for Peggy Lee, Judy Garland and Ella Fitzgerald; he championed women who I admired tremendously,” Johanna says.

“In the show I play a myriad of characters and we have a band as well.

“We have an amazing rhythm section and it’s piano-based and it has that fantastic jazzy, standard-zy feel.”

* The Songs That Got Away plays at the Glen St Theatre from September 8-10