DALTON, Ga. — From the stage of the Dalton Little Theater to the lights of Broadway, theater has been Shane Marshall Brown’s passion since childhood.

“Theater can happen anywhere,” said the Tunnel Hill native. “You can come together with your castmates and put on a play in a parking lot if you want to. It doesn’t have to be high-tech like film. And it’s more tangible.”

Now working as a publicist in New York City, Brown has “opened” 10 different Broadway plays, including “Hamilton,” a musical about Alexander Hamilton which won 11 Tony awards, Broadway’s highest honor, last month.

Back in 1998, Brown arranged a trip with some friends to New York City. While there, he saw “Rent,” a rock musical based on the opera “La Boheme” that had won a Tony award for best musical a few years earlier.

“That was my first Broadway play,” he said.

“Rent” was produced by Jeffrey Seller and Kevin McCollum, who also produced “Hamilton.”

Brown’s love of theater was nurtured here in Whitfield County.

“I spent my time in school plays at Westside and Northwest. At that time, I was also involved with Dalton Little Theater,” he said. “It was through that that I found my college. Ellen Thompson, who is on the board of the Dalton Little Theater, suggested that I look at the Savannah College of Art and Design, or SCAD as it is known. She provided me with a letter of recommendation, and I got in. I studied theater — directing and producing — and interned at the Williamstown Theater Festival (in Massachusetts).”

After graduating from SCAD in 2003, he moved to New York City and began working in publicity.

“There’s nowhere else in the United States that has the theater industry that New York has. Everything that goes out on the road comes out of New York. It’s the place I needed to be to work in theater,” he said.

Brown works for Sam Rudy Media Relations.

“We represent ‘Avenue Q,’ a long running show,” he said. “I opened and closed ‘Cinderella.’ I also worked on “A Life in the Theater” with Patrick Stewart. I was an associate producer on that.”

Brown said it was a pleasure to work with Stewart, who may be best known for his work on the X-Men movies and “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

“He’s a theater-trained actor. He loves his work, and he loves the theater,” Brown said.

As a publicist, he arranges interviews with a play’s cast members, as well as photos and video of the production.

“Hamilton” has gone beyond a being a box office hit and critic’s favorite to being a cultural phenomenon, with the cast performing at the White House and numerous political figures coming to see the show in New York.

“Part of my job has been to escort these VIPs backstage,” Brown said. “And I must say I’ve been the most impressed with the Supreme Court judges that have come backstage. One of my biggest honors has been to escort Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy backstage and introduce him to the cast and also to get the chance to thank him for what he has done for marriage equality and for the opinion he wrote (in Obergefell v. Hodges, which held that the Constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry). I was married to my husband in 2013, so that was a very meaningful moment for me.”

He was also there when Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator and star of “Hamilton” rapped with President Barack Obama in the White House Rose Garden earlier this year.

“This job has given me so many wonderful moments,” he said.