The Walls of Jericho by Rudolph Fisher

While he couldn't compare it with the Lafayette Theater of course, still Joshua Jones considered it a pretty good show. At least it would have been if the dumbbells hadn't jumped up and down so often.

It began with music, a chorus singing far away behind the audience -- outside the church, it seemed. The singing came nearer and entered at the rear, and Shine obeyed the impulse to turn and look; but before he could determine what the trick in it was, Linda pinched his arm sharply and brought him about, puzzled and resentful, to see her shaking her bowed head with ill-concealed vigor. Thereupon he noticed that everyone else stood like Linda, motionless, with lowered head, as if it wasn't proper to look; and he wondered what manner of performance this was, which one might attend, but on which one might not gaze.