After many years of hard work, Chris Boneau, a University alumnus, has made his way from being the first director of public relations for LSU’s theatre department to partnering one of the most prominent Broadway public relations firms in New York City.
His company, Boneau/Bryan-Brown, currently represents Broadway blockbusters including “The Lion King,” “Aida,” “Stomp,” “Cabaret,” and “Beauty and the Beast,” among others, according to his assistant, Genevieve Miller.
It was a long road, Boneau said, but it was worth all of the hard work.
“I have not only a great job, but a great career,” he said from his New York office. “I’m proud to say that I have been able to stay healthy, sane, positive and happy.”
Boneau started at LSU in 1975 and immediately jumped into the theatre program, enthusiastically making a name for himself.
“He had so much energy, commitment and passion,” said theatre Alumna Professor Emerita Gresdna Doty, one of Boneau’s mentors. “He loved theatre and loved to act. He even directed a few good plays.”
After graduating in 1979 with a bachelor’s degree in speech education, Doty said, Boneau took a graduate assistanceship in publicity and became the unprecedented director of public relations for the LSU theatre department.
“It was a lot different than today’s PR because we didn’t use computers, just rotary dial phones and a big, bulky typewriter,” Boneau said. “But, it was great experience and taught me how to do the job, which is to put butts in seats.”
Doty remembers how easily he adapted to the new job.
“He was a natural at it, he was a great people person,” she said. “He has always understood the business and has been a nice person, which is important.”
At around the same time, Boneau said that he faced the big decision of whether or not to follow his dream of acting.
He credited Doty, along with Professor Emeritus Bill Harbin and Professor John Dennis for pointing him in the direction of public relations.
“They sat me down and told me that I was really good at this other thing and that I should pursue it,” he said. “It opened up a whole new world for me.”
Soon after, in the summer of 1982, Boneau said that he packed all of his belongings into a U-Haul truck and moved to Louisville, Ky. for a yearlong unpaid internship with a theatre company.
He said it was a long road to Broadway, including many dead-end jobs in theatre companies around the country, before he went into business with Adrian Bryan-Brown in New York City in 1991 to form Boneau/Bryan-Brown.
The company has since thrived and promoted plays that featured such stars as Nicole Kidman, Nathan Lane, Whoopi Goldberg, Kevin Spacey, Hugh Jackman, Antonio Banderas, Woody Harrelson, Alec Baldwin and Anne Heche, according to Miller.
Boneau said that he is very happy with his life right now because he has a career that he loves, along with family and friends that love him.
Also, he splits his free time between his home in the Lower East Side Village of the city and his “weekend” countryside home in upstate New York, commuting with the first car he has owned in 22 years.
Boneau does not regret his decision to give up acting.
“I miss it and I think that I was good at it, but not great,” he said. “I ended up working harder at this than I would have for acting.”