• Courtesy
• From left: Alex Gossard, Coyah Mosher, Mark S. Roberts, Taryn Noelle, Jim Thompson, Wyatt Aubut and Kianna Bromley in The Addams Family

When Lost Nation Theater lost its performance space in Montpelier City Hall to the flood about a week before the company was due to open a big musical, it seemed obvious the show would be canceled. Instead, in about a week's time, the cast and crew redesigned the production for a new venue.

The audience at the Barre Opera House on Saturday assembled to see a hilarious, heartfelt and fully polished production of The Addams Family. In theater, the technical term for this is a miracle.

Filling the seats was a simple and beautiful declaration of the community's support for Lost Nation. Making the audience laugh was the company's gift in return. Though a 12-performance regular run was compressed to only two shows, the mood on Saturday was celebratory on both sides of the curtain.

The flood delayed the opening a mere two days. Founding artistic director Kim Bent gave an emotional preshow speech to a crowd manifestly happy to be there. And then the lights were cued and the seven-piece orchestra began the finger-snapping theme song. The cast of 21 seemed to channel extra energy.

The script and score of a musical are the raw materials, but they're no blueprints. Director Eric Love and choreographer Taryn Noelle had designed every movement in the show for a three-quarter thrust stage closely surrounded by the audience. To move it to a big proscenium stage facing an audience many rows deep was to reimagine it — and just possibly to make it better.

The extreme frontality in the new staging directly communicated the show's tongue-in-cheek humor to viewers. Director Love belongs in a show-must-go-on hall of fame for rallying the cast and crew. Costumer Cora Fauser sat next to me and said simply: "Eric is magic."

The joyous performance was the result of hundreds of individual efforts, from ushers to a knockout leading man. It's just what bouncing back looks like.