"Shine!" is an original musical comedy 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. We've borrowed characters from both novels, youthened some, aged others, re-invented a few, created a few of our own. And of course we gave them songs to sing and comic devices Horatio did not provide. But we stuck with 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. The road was rutted, it twisted and turned, it was loaded with chance encounters and bothersome detours, but if one got on with it, didn't complain about the rough days and the tragic losses, well—it could lead all who traveled it right smack into a musical comedy.

Welcome to the world of "Shine!". It probably will not make you rich. It may not even get you started up the road to success. On the other hand, it may --"