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Dee Snider mixes heavy metal, holiday cheer in 'Christmas Tale'

In the 1980s, Dee Snider crafted an anti-establishment persona heading the heavy metal band Twisted Sister. So some might be surprised that the rocker famed for chart-topping protest anthems like “We're Not Gonna Take It” and “I Wanna Rock” is creating and starring in a new musical that aims to bring families together for the holidays.

“Dee Snider's Rock & Roll Christmas Tale” makes its world premiere at Chicago's Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place for a two-month run starting Nov. 4.

“This show is the culmination of all my life experiences and all elements of my life brought together: the rock 'n' roll side of me, the theatrical-acting side of me and the family man side of me,” said Snider at a recent news conference in Chicago.

Snider has been married to his wife, Suzette, for 38 years. He's a father of four, a grandfather of three.

Snider insists that his “Rock & Roll Christmas Tale” is a profanity-free family show inspired in part by “It's a Wonderful Life,” even though it includes an exorcism and a satanic blood pact. Snider narrates this modern-day Faustian plot that focuses on four guys in a floundering heavy metal band called Däisy Cütter who sell their souls to the devil in exchange for fame and success. The only problem is that whenever the band jams together to play a metal song, it soon morphs into a rocked-out Christmas carol.

Snider originally envisioned his “Rock & Roll Christmas Tale” as an album, but director Adam John Hunter helped convince him that it belonged on the stage as a holiday musical. Hunter first met Snider when he directed him as the spaced-out club owner Dennis Dupree during the Broadway run of “Rock of Ages” in 2010.

“I read it and I laughed, and my wife read it just to make sure I wasn't crazy and I wasn't liking it because (Snider) was such a great guy, and she said, ‘No it's really funny,'” Hunter said. “I went up to him the next day and said I want to direct it.”

In the four years it has taken “Dee Snider's Rock & Roll Christmas Tale” to be fully realized, Chicago-based John B. Yonover came aboard as a lead producer with Scooter Pietsch on hand as a script consultant.

Snider is proud of the fact that he was able to find a largely Chicago-based cast of versatile actor/musicians to star in his show. The goal is for the musical to find its feet in Chicago before possibly being produced in other cities over future holiday seasons.

Down the road, other rock stars could take on Snider's narrator role. He sees a lot of plusses in a seasonal holiday run in one place rather than touring.

“I think many of my peers would embrace the opportunity,” said Snider. “That's why I think the whole residency thing in (Las) Vegas is becoming so big is because a band can just sit in one spot and have a degree of normalcy to their lives because every night they go to their job.”

With “Rock & Roll Christmas Carol,” Dee Snider joins the recent trend of rock stars writing for musical theater, following Cyndi Lauper's Tony Award-winning Broadway score for “Kinky Boots” and Sting's “The Last Ship.” Both of those shows played Chicago before opening on Broadway.

And for those who may be wary of Christmas songs performed through a heavy metal filter, Snider pointed out that “virtually every generation out there has been raised on some kind of rock.”

“It's not like my parents, who were part of the greatest generation, didn't understand rock,” Snider said. “We've all been raised to rock.”

Dee Snider of the metal band Twisted Sister showed off his family-man side in the 2010 A&E reality show "Growing Up Twisted," which featured his family, clockwise from left: Cody, Suzette, Logan Lane, Patty, Jesse, Shane, Cheyenne and Dee, holding dog Chase. Associated Press/A&E
Dee Snider writes and stars in "Dee Snider's Rock & Roll Christmas Tale," which has its world premiere in Chicago at the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place from Tuesday, Nov. 4, through Sunday, Jan. 4.

“Dee Snider's Rock & Roll Christmas Tale”

<b>Location:</b> Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place, 175 E. Chestnut St., Chicago, (800) 775-2000 or <a href="http://broadwayinchicago.com">broadwayinchicago.com</a>

<b>Showtimes: </b>Nov. 4 through Jan. 4: times vary

<b>Tickets:</b> $27-$87

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