Shine! is a
musical based on characters and situations found in the works of
Horatio Alger, particularly
Ragged Dick and
Silas Snobden's Office Boy, respectively Alger's first best-seller and the one first printed in book form eighty years after it was first serialized in
Argosy. Its plot and characters focus on Alger's pervasive theme: that in America one could begin with nothing, and with the right attitude, hard work, application, and a little bit of luck, dream a dream and chart a course on which to achieve it. Richard Seff wrote the book, Lee Goldsmith the lyrics and Roger Anderson the music. Anderson and Goldsmith had previously collaborated on the musical
Chaplin.