drafting the second half

Due to our limited time frame, we had to make some choices on what was going to be involved in our second half of the show, we had so much material that it would run over the time limit for the piece.
We had to consider keeping a young audience engaged for a substantial period of time, not giving them a moment to zone out. Plus the get in for the students to be settled and the get out for their next lessons, this is to ensure that there were no upsets from their other teachers.
From this we managed to cut down the material for the second half. Something I learnt from this was not to take hold of what you have created. The re-drafting scene that I had written got cut, even though it took me quite a while to write it, it was a good experience of happily letting go of what I had created for the benefit of the whole piece. Along with that and the prisoner of war section, as well as reordering the other scenes, we managed to cut down the second half considerably.
The second half has taken a very different turn that the first, after the hospital scene, instead of the story continuing, it goes into split images of the couple's life, giving glimpses to the audience that they really did have this extraordinary life.
Unfortunately I got ill when this scene was being devised, but I know that it's creation came about by the librarians deciding what life events would be part of this scene. 'Photo shots' of each event were then made where a book was used in each one, incorporating the set that we wanted to include more of than the first half.
Life events:
Engagement
Marriage
First House
First baby
Reading a story to their child
Day at the beach
Moving house again
Child's birthday
Child's graduation
Anniversary 25th 30th 40th 50th
Jonathan then came in and we worked on the transitions through each event, this scene had the potential to be very slow moving and lose pace quickly if there weren't easy transitions that everyone needed to be fully aware of. Small snippets of dialogue were added to layer the scene and again inform the audience of exactly what was happening so there was no room for confusion, you don't want to lose your audience halfway through the show! The thought of having pictures appearing inside the books, like a child's face, baby scan, sandcastle, graduation form etc was made which is a task from the librarians to have in place over the next rehearsals. Practicing finding the right pages at quick speed is something that needs to be heavily rehearsed.
Everyone was particularly focused in these rehearsals, and everyone pitching in ideas got this scene to be something really beautiful, again communication of book tracking is crucial for all cast members to be aware of so that this scene is successful.