NEW YORK CITY: The New York Musical Festival (NYMF) has named the musical Pedro Pan as the recipient of this year’s NYMF Developmental Reading Series Award. The award is given annually to the most promising new musical in the program’s Developmental Reading Series. The musical, with book by Rebecca Aparicio and music and lyrics by Stephen Anthony Elkins, was lauded at NYMF’s Gala in New York City earlier this month.

The musical will receive automatic acceptance into NYMF’s Next Link Project next season, in addition to a $5,000 subsidy to support participation fees, entrepreneurial training, and networking opportunities. Aparicio and Elkins will also receive dramaturgical support from MYNF’s programming department.

Pedro Pan is about the events of Operación Pedro Pan, and follows a young boy who is sent to the U.S. to escape the growing dangers of post-revolutionary Cuba during the mass exodus.