Written by Kris Vire for TimeOut

Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place. By Dee Snider. Directed by Adam John Hunter. With ensemble cast. Running time: 1hr 30mins; no intermission.

Dee Snider, the Twisted Sister frontman and, more recently, reality-TV staple, is both a consummate showman and, I got the impression in a one-on-one interview a few weeks back, a shrewd businessman. He, and his producers, recognize that his goofball concept for a holiday show (which he originally imagined as a concept album) marrying his own ’80s-era rock aesthetic with Christmas cheer, in 2014, has plenty of potential cross-generational appeal as an alternative to the Currier & Ives earnestness of certain other big-C carols.

Done right, it could sell to those who were adult fans three decades ago and now are cool grandparents; my generation, who were schoolkids in Twisted Sister’s heyday and now have kids of our own; and a younger set curious about the guy they know mostly from Celebrity Apprentice.

This initial staging, which stars Snider alongside a cast of Chicago actors, fulfills much of that potential, but like a new electric guitar, it needs a little tuning before it can really shred.

The high/low concept of the story for which Snider serves as narrator is that of a not-so-fearsome foursome called Däisy Cütter who, to boost their futile efforts to keep the near-obsolete genre of hair metal alive after too many nights playing to empty rooms, decide to sell their souls to Satan. (Fear not—for the types of families who would consider a Dee Snider Christmas show in the first place, things remain family-friendly enough.)

After signing the pact written up by lead singer D.D. (the appealing Adam Michaels, done up like pre-VH1 Bret Michaels), though, the band finds itself shifting uncontrollably into rock renditions of Christmas carols; though the fans they crave start showing up in droves, D.D. considers their compulsive new material unacceptably un-Metal. (The big reveal of what exactly is going on is saved until the end, but if you catch the subtle-as-an-anvil early mention of D.D.’s horrible spelling abilities, you’ll get where we’re headed.)

Snider’s script has its charms both clever and cornball, with its mix of rock in-jokes and Dad Jokes. The four actors who make up Däisy Cütter—Michaels, Dan Peters, Tommy Hahn and Wilam Tarris, endearing as the new-guy drummer—display solid musicianship, and the costumes, designed by Snider’s wife Suzette, are pitch-perfect pastiches of oversharing Spandex for the guys and ultra-miniskirts and improbable heels for the ladies (Keely Vasquez as the club owner and love interest for dorky drummer Taris, and Christina Nieves and Taylor Yacktman as a pair of flesh-and-blood video vixens).

Three out of Four