If you notice a low-hanging cloud over Bow Street, fear not the alien invasion; it’s just that “Hairspray” has landed at Seacoast Repertory Theatre to make a six-week run. Babes with beehives and boys with Brylcreem meet on stage to sing and dance and spritz their way through the early Kennedy years. 

Tracy Turnblad (Carolyn Kimmel) is a lovable plus-size teen who dreams of dancing on the local version of “American Bandstand,” the “Corny Collins Show.” She has the moves and the confidence to get there, and pines after Link (Justin Robinson), the show’s resident crooning heartthrob. Initially discouraged by her mother Edna (Greg Kalafatas), Tracy finds encouragement from dad Wilbur (Scott Caple) and auditions. But, in the face of injustice, Tracy is willing to risk her dream by staging a protest at the studio against a policy that restricts Baltimore’s black teens from dancing on the show except during designated monthly “Negro Days.” 

“Hairspray” fills a niche in mid-century musical nostalgia, fitting perfectly between the bobby-soxers of “Grease” and the hippies of “Hair.” Each character is at a personal crossroads that explores race in America at the time. Tracy sees no reason why kids of any color can’t dance together on television. Corny Collins, the show’s host, agrees with Tracy but bows to pressure from the show’s sponsors. Tracy’s best friend Penny falls for Seaweed and is afraid that her mother will disapprove of her love for a black boy from the east side of town. Motormouth Maybelle encourages her kids not to give up after being denied the right to dance with the totally white cast of “The Corny Collins” show. Some pretty heavy content, but this is a musical, and it’s served up with some fancy footwork and a smile.

That said, let’s get one thing out of the way: “Hairspray” the Broadway musical is not the same as John Waters’ original 1988 film (or the 2007 musical film, for that matter). The eponymous theme song from the film is nowhere to be found in the play, there’s a lack of exploding hairdos, and Tracy never struts her stuff for “Miss Hairspray” in a dress covered in cooties. Also, this musical sees the characters as less empowered—Edna and Tracy are not only made fun of by others, they also make fun of themselves. It’s a bit uncomfortable but plays to a live audience reaction in a way that the film never had to. These types of differences are deliberate, and in a 2007 interview with the Baltimore Sun, Waters talked of treating each incarnation of “Hairspray” as its own separate entity. “The musical onstage,” said Waters, “had to be exaggerated.”  

The Rep’s staging of “Hairspray” makes excellent use of set design and space. Confining Edna to a tiny corner of the stage during her cooped-up hausfrau phase, only to reveal her timidly tiptoeing across the stage as Tracy coaxes her out of her shell. The set is constructed like a turntable, with modular benches and knobs that can be reconfigured to create the show’s various spaces.  

The giant beehives, sunny smiles and toe-tapping dance numbers leave you with the genuine feeling that we could all get along if we could only just dance and sing together. Carolyn Kimmel has the infectious enthusiasm, cheery disposition and wide-eyed wonder of a Broadway Spongebob Squarepants. So sunny is Tracy, that she barely notices (or reacts) to the tricks of Amber Von Tussel (Amanda Smith) and her mother Velma (Zoe Blair Friedman) as they systematically try to squash her blossoming popularity. 

The cast is solid from top to bottom and the dancing and singing are most noteworthy. The strongest performances come from Ashley Kelley as Motormouth Maybelle and Kevin Smith Kirkwood as Seaweed, making “Run and Tell That” one of the two stand-out numbers of the show.  

The other top performance, “I Know Where I’ve Been,” left much of the crowd standing and cheering at the end. As Edna, Greg Kalafatas carries on in divine tradition with fabulous drag. It’s also nice to see familiar Seacoast theater faces like Jamie Bradley and Meredith Caple in their varied and hilarious incarnations of the male and female authority figures within the show. Scott Caple, as Wilbur Turnblad, gives an endearingly sweet performance in his duet with Edna, “(You’re) Timeless to Me.”  

Though Waters acknowledges that the musical is its own thing, separate and distinct from the 1988 film, it still has that signature John Waters vibe, with less trash and a bit more flash—eight Tonys worth, to be exact. In this Baltimore, the outcasts are the cool ones and the popular kids are mean. Cross-dressers, bystanders and civil rights picketers can share the same jail cell, and you never know who may fall for a drag queen. 

“Hairspray” runs through Aug. 28 at Seacoast Repertory Theater, 125 Bow St., Portsmouth, 603-433-4472, www.seacoastrep.org. Show times are Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 pm. Tickets are $20.