Former TV anchor back in the limelight on stage

From the intro to a feature in The State in South Carolina:

Susan Aude visited thousands of homes nightly for 25 years as a news anchor on WIS-TV.

Outside the television studio, she was active in community affairs and honored by the Girl Scouts and the Governor’s Commission on Women. Aude was paralyzed from the waist down in an auto accident while in college, and her life story was the subject of profiles on Lifetime television and in Ms. magazine.

But, since retiring in 2006, Aude, 56, has kept a low profile.

This week, however, Aude will make a dramatic return to the public eye in “Dangerous Liaisons” at Workshop Theatre.

When she decided to audition for “Dangerous Liaisons,” Aude didn’t depend on her high-profile TV past to get the role. Instead, Aude showed up for auditions like everyone else.

Except no one else was in a wheelchair.

“I was like, “Holy (smoke), that’s Susan Aude,’” said Monica Wyche, who grew up watching Aude on the news and has one of the play’s lead roles.

Aude acted in high school and college. She was in rehearsals for “Harvey” at Erskine College in 1974 when she was injured.

Over the past two years, Aude said, she had kept an eye out for plays that she might find a place in.

“I was thinking about what I wanted to do next, and this was something I’d always enjoyed,” said Aude. “Really, it was in my mind back when I was at WIS, but working nights, it would have been impossible.

“It had to be the right play, and the fact that I’m in a wheelchair had to make sense,” she said.

Then “Dangerous Liaisons,” a seduction drama set in 18th century France, came along.

Director Scott Blanks cast Aude (pictured in the play) as Madame de Rosemonde, aunt of the great seducer Valmont, played by Paul Kaufmann. Blanks has been working in theater as a director and actor for 30 years but never had been involved with a show with a disabled actor.

“We were looking for someone who could carry off the stateliness and bearing of the role,” Blanks said. “And she was the best person to do that.”