Composer Portal · Concrete Winter: The Musical
Concrete Winter is a three-act musical libretto, 319 pages, written at the Dune Shack on the outer Cape over six days in May 2026. The text is finished. The painter became a playwright somewhere between the second night and the fourth. The work is now ready for music.
I am not looking for a job. I am not looking for someone to score my play in a polite and supportive way. Extraordinary, here, means someone whose work I already admire before I send this page, who loses sleep over the same questions I lose sleep over, and who reads the libretto cover to cover and writes me back inside a week. If that is you, the form below is the way in.
The Story
Set in Provincetown during the quiet winter months, the story unfolds far from the crowded summer streets most visitors know. The tourists have left. The beaches are empty. The wind comes hard off the Atlantic. What remains is a small community of artists, fishermen, bartenders, dreamers, and outsiders trying to find their place in a town perched at the very edge of America.
At the center of the story is Elias, a man carrying the weight of addiction, loss, and a past he cannot outrun. Like many people who arrive in Provincetown, he comes searching for something. Whether it is redemption, forgiveness, or simply a chance to begin again, he is not entirely sure. What he finds instead is a community that challenges him at every turn and forces him to confront the parts of himself he would rather leave behind. When Gabriel enters his life, everything begins to shift.
Their relationship becomes the emotional core of the story. It is not a simple romance. It is a complicated and deeply human exploration of trust, vulnerability, and the courage required to truly love another person. As their connection grows, both men are forced to face old wounds, unfinished histories, and the difficult choices that shape the course of their lives.
Surrounding them is a cast of interconnected characters whose lives overlap through friendship, loyalty, family, heartbreak, and hope. Some are trying to build a future. Some are struggling to survive the present. Others remain trapped by decisions made years ago. Together they form the portrait of a community held together by resilience and the shared understanding of what it means to live on the margins.
At its heart, Concrete Winter is a story about belonging. It explores the families we inherit, the families we create, and the people who help us become ourselves. The work examines addiction, recovery, identity, grief, and the long road toward healing. It asks whether people can truly change, whether forgiveness can be earned, and whether love is strong enough to survive the weight of the past.
Why This Story, Why Now
Concrete Winter began in the same winter that produced the painting series. I spent six days at the Dune Shack on the outer Cape, May 9 through 16, 2026, in an unheated cabin with no running water, the wind off the Atlantic, and the question of what it would be like to attempt to write something impossible for a person who is not a writer. The first night I produced three pages. By the fourth night the painter had become something else and could not turn back. By the sixth morning the libretto was finished.
The story came out of Provincetown in winter, not Provincetown in summer. There is a Provincetown most people know from photographs: the summer streets full, the boats in the harbor, the long light. That town is not the one in this libretto. The one in this libretto is the town the people who stay through January actually live in, the one built around the unheated studios and the slow work and the long dark, and the decision to keep making things when no one is watching. That is the town I made the paintings in, and the town I wrote the libretto in. A composer will recognize it because most composers have lived in some version of it.
A Sample of the Voice
Set in Provincetown during the quiet winter months,
the story unfolds far from the crowded summer streets
most visitors know.
The tourists have left. The beaches are empty.
The wind comes hard off the Atlantic.
What remains is a small community of artists,
fishermen, bartenders, dreamers, and outsiders
trying to find their place in a town perched
at the very edge of America.
At the center of the story is Elias,
a man carrying the weight of addiction, loss,
and a past he cannot outrun.
Like many people who arrive in Provincetown,
he comes searching for something.
Whether it is redemption, forgiveness,
or simply a chance to begin again
he is not entirely sure.
When Gabriel enters his life,
everything begins to shift.
Their relationship becomes the emotional core.
It is not a simple romance.
It is a complicated and deeply human exploration
of trust, vulnerability,
and the courage required to truly love
another person.
As their connection grows, both men
are forced to face old wounds,
unfinished histories, and the difficult choices
that shape the course of their lives.
From the opening movement of the libretto. Three acts, 319 pages, spanning November through the first thaw of the following April. The full libretto is available on request for any composer who reaches out below.
Reach Out
Send your name, a working email, and a short note telling me about the work you make and why this might be the right time for both of us. If you have a link to past work, include it. I read every message myself.