OK, the context (stage lighting) makes it make much more sense.
"LED theory" is going to get into things like semiconductor properties, materials, gap widths, etc. that are complete irrelevant. What you have is a basic electronic repair problem. If you have a schematic for the device in question, it should be pretty easy to figure out how to make at least a partial repair.
The biggest question is, how isolated is the power supply from the control board? If they're integrated, you may have a big problem, especially if the blown-up component(s) are on the primary input side. The power supply's job is to convert 120V AC to DC at whatever voltage(s) are appropriate for the control electronics & the LEDs. The controller probably wants 5VDC. Most standard LEDs will also want 5VDC, but high-intensity ones might want something higher, like 12VDC, etc. If the power supply is blown (which sounds rather likely, from a lightning strike), you may be able to just "cut it out" of the board & substitute an external supply (or even more than 1, if necessary) to supply the required voltage(s).
There may be 1 or more inline fuses, and/or zener diode(s) on the primary side of the supply that were burned out & can be replaced pretty cheaply & easily. That would be ideal, & get you back to full functionality.
Worst case, if you can't ID sections of the control board, you may have to spend a bunch of time & trouble tracing out leads. There may be groups of individual LEDs that share a common driver. The driver may take TTL inputs from the controller & convert them to constant-current/variable-voltage (for dimming) output at some other (presumably higher) voltage (9V, 12V, 18V, 24V?) kind of like a relay. You may be able to isolate the drivers from their control logic & the LED power source. Then, apply 5VDC to the TTL inputs & the appropriate xVDC to the drivers' LED power inputs & it should all light up, which sounds like what you wanted to do. Lots of variables are involved, depending on the specific unit.
