TORONTO — Twisted Sister singer Dee Snider is bringing his holiday rock spectacle to Toronto later this year.
The 60-year-old will be at the Winter Garden Theatre on Tuesday afternoon to announce plans for a run of Dee Snider’s Rock & Roll Christmas Tale.
Blending guitar-driven versions of Christmas classics with Twisted Sister hits like “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “I Wanna Rock,” the musical tells the story of wannabe rock stars in a band called Däisy Cütter who sell their souls to the devil but end up experiencing the magic of Christmas.
“It’s about a band that has a dream and is giving it everything they’ve got for that dream,” explains Snider in a promotional video, “and also recognizing that sometimes we overlook all the great things we have in our life.”
Snider, who appears as both the narrator and exorcist, said “it’s very different from other shows.”
Dee Snider’s Rock & Roll Christmas Tale had its world premiere (and a two-month run) last year at the Broadway Playhouse in Chicago.
Reviews were mixed. The Chicago Sun-Times called the show “silly” and Chicago Reader described it as “poorly thought out and sloppily executed” but Windy City Times suggested it was “a welcome compromise in the sugar vs. snark holiday entertainment wars.”
In addition to being the colourful front man of Twisted Sister since 1976, Snider starred in the Broadway production of Rock of Ages in 2010 and released an album of Broadway songs in 2012.
Twisted Sister released a Christmas album, A Twisted Christmas, in 2006 and Snider wrote “The Magic of Christmas Day,” which was recorded in 1998 by Canadian chanteuse Celine Dion.
While in Toronto in March, Snider caught a performance of Cannibal! The Musical at the Panasonic Theatre.
In April, Snider and the surviving members of Twisted Sister announced they will disband next year.
BELOW: Watch highlights from Dee Snider’s Rock & Roll Christmas Tale.
BELOW: Watch the video for Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”
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