What Katie Holmes Did Next: The Newly Single Actress Is Broadway Bound
Now that it’s generally accepted that Katie Holmes planned her flight from her marriage to Tom Cruise for some time, more news about her emancipated new life arrives today.
Holmes’ first new post-divorce gig will see her treading the boards this fall on Broadway – specifically the Music Box theater – in Theresa Rebeck’s (Pulitzer Prize finalist and Smash television-series creator) black comedy Dead Accounts.
In a generic statement to the Times about her new role Holmes said,
“I am thrilled to be coming back to the Broadway community and honored to be a part of this team.”
The 33-year-old newly single mom will play Lorna, a distinctly unglamorous woman living with aging parents while she attempts to get her life together. If well received, it will be a major step forward to re-establishing Holmes in the acting world, especially if it takes the actress out of her acting comfort zone.
At the helm will be Tony Award winning director Jack O’Brien – Imaginary Friends (2002), Grace Under Fire (1995), An Enemy of the People (1990) and several episodes of American Playhouse.
Much has been written about Holmes potentially emerging from her ex-husband’s alleged control to a flourishing post-divorce career. Paul Dergarabedian, veteran analyst for Hollywood.com was quoted this week saying,
“It could be a brand-new beginning for Katie Holmes. Holmes was definitely on the rise and obviously took a left turn and got into a relationship with Tom Cruise, which kind of overshadowed her career and slowed her momentum.”
Dergarabedian adds, “Actors often make a choice to pursue family rather than career. All she needs to do is put herself in the right projects. Whatever her next project is, there will obviously be a curiosity factor. But at the end of the day, she’s got to do good work.”
Past roles in Dawson’s Creek (1998-2003), unremarkable turns in Batman Begins (2005), Mad Money (2008), and the TV mini-series The Kennedy’s (2011), plus recent announcements about new roles in the life-imitating-art film Molly, Responsible Adults and a recently shot adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull – suggest the Toledo native is reaching for a life she put aside after 2006.
And we all know how that turned out.
Whatever the truth of what happened in that marriage – as yet, Holmes has managed to avoid extensive quotation marks – weeks of high-intensity media spotlight and no small amount of sympathetic coverage have put Holmes in a vantage position to capitalize on all that priceless publicity; something she has in fact been doing – albeit indirectly.
Bold moves ahead of New York Fashion week in September – where the actress is expected to debut her clothing line Holmes & Yang that she launched in 2011 with Jeanne Yang – have seen Holmes in entertainment news cycles every day looking fresh, happy, and often wearing her fashion line.
All of the above have undoubtedly put the fashion world – and the rest – on notice that she is stepping front and center into her new life as an independent woman. Because one thing’s for sure; whatever Katie Holmes does next, the whole world will be watching.
