Last year they killed it. So now the cast is back for another whack at musical ‘Lizzie.’

On the last day of Oregon Contemporary Theatre’s run of “Lizzie” last year, Kelly Finch, who played Alice, said she was “boo-hoo crying” because she didn’t want the show to end.

“This show has meant a lot for me,” Finch said. “It was my first professional show, but also just the story is really incredible.”

So when the theater asked whether the cast wanted to bring it back, she said “yes” immediately. The original cast has returned, along with most of the original band, for another run of the rock ’n’ roll musical about Lizzie Borden.

The reason for a second run, said Jocelyn Kerr, who plays Bridget, goes back to last year’s closing night: Artistic director Craig Willis told the cast it was the best musical Oregon Contemporary Theatre had done in his 23 years there.

An unsolved mystery

Lizzie Borden was tried and acquitted in 1893 for the supposed axe murders of her father and stepmother, and the case remains unsolved. Kerr, who has read three books on it, said that’s part of what draws people in. Investigators found rags with blood in the basement, but Lizzie claimed it was her menstrual blood.

“The moment that it was claimed to be menstrual, everybody was like, ‘Nope,’” she said. “In a way, it was kind of a perfect way to not be accused further.”

The musical builds on that uncertainty, and a new Netflix series, “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story,” has brought fresh attention to the case. Cast members said some audience members are arriving with that version in mind.

Rock ’n’ roll is a natural fit for a story about a woman fighting for agency, said Abigail Moon, who plays Lizzie.

“Rock ’n’ roll and punk is about speaking up for what you believe, making it loud and raucous, and … putting your truth out there in the world,” Moon said.

For Finch, the return engagement wasn’t about repeating the show but about trying to “give it everything we’ve got.”

Same cast, new technology

This year’s production has upgrades. With the theater’s new sound system, performers use live handheld microphones for much of the show, in addition to the headsets that were used as the main live mic last year.

Kerr said the cast spent rehearsal time working out how the mics move on- and off-stage. Some choreography that never worked was reworked, and a glowing-wings sign is new for the finale.

As the wings sign suggests, the idea of flight runs through the production, from the pigeons Lizzie keeps (her father kills the birds), to the song “The Soul of the White Bird.” Kerr reads the song’s cryptic lyrics as a call for collective liberation, and said “we kind of see that thematically mirrored in our social structure today.”

The show also explores queerness, through a hidden romance between Lizzie and Alice.

“We start in this very closed-off thing, and then we break free and we fly,” Finch said.

If you go

• When: The show runs through Sunday, Nov. 8
• Where: Oregon Contemporary Theatre, 194 W. Broadway, Eugene
• How much: Tickets start at $34; details can be found online.