You Can't Stop the Beat

On May 29, 2026, inside Allendale United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Gay Men's Chorus of Tampa Bay closed in on the climax of "Love in Technicolor" with "You Can't Stop the Beat," the irrepressible finale of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman's "Hairspray." Robert Strauss's arrangement put the full chorus front and center, with soloists Scott Lockard and Johnny Williams trading and stacking lines atop the ensemble's churning groove.

Strauss's writing leans into everything that makes the original irresistible: a driving early-sixties backbeat, a tribute-to-Phil-Spector wall of sound, and a key-climbing structure that ratchets the energy higher with each modulation. The arrangement layers call-and-response between soloists and chorus, building density verse by verse until the whole texture seems to lift off.

The performance crackled. Lockard's bright, forward tenor and Williams's warmer, grounded delivery gave the solo lines real contrast, and the chorus answered with crisp diction that kept the rapid-fire lyric intelligible at tempo. Sectional balance held even as the dynamics surged; the men shaped the swells without ever letting the beat slacken, and the final modulations landed with a punch.

Allendale's resonant sanctuary gave the sound welcome bloom, the stone-and-wood acoustic adding heft to the bass line and ring to the topmost notes without smearing the consonants. By the last chorus the audience was clapping along, and the closing chord drew an immediate, roaring ovation that filled the room.

As a finale within "Let's Go to the Movies!," the song was a perfect fit: a number about change, joy, and refusing to be silenced, sung by a chorus whose very existence carries that message. The beat they made together was exactly the kind of visible, defiant joy the chorus exists to share.