Katie Holmes will be returning to the Broadway stage in her first major project since announcing her divorce from Tom Cruise.

The actress will star in Theresa Rebeck’s Dead Accounts, a five-character comedy that will be directed by three-time Tony Award winner Jack O’Brien.

The play will open on Broadway in autumn at the Music Box Theatre.

Ms Holmes’s announcement comes on the heels of word earlier this month that she and her soon-to-be-former husband had reached a divorce agreement.

She and Mr Cruise were married in Italy in 2006 and they have a six-year-old daughter, Suri.

The play will mark Ms Holmes’s first return to Broadway since appearing in the 2008 production of All My Sons.

Ms Rebeck, who was a driving force in the first season of NBC’s Smash, has written several plays, including Seminar and Mauritius.

Her last appearance on Broadway, which also marked her debut, was in the 2008 production of All My Sons. The news that she will return to a Times Square stage is also a signal that she may intend to stay in New York City.

Ms Holmes first came to stardom in the teen soap opera Dawson’s Creek and had roles in films including The Ice Storm, Go and Wonder Boys.

After she began dating Mr Cruise, she took a three-year break from acting that concluded with the poorly received robbery film Mad Money. She followed that up with the wedding drama The Romantics and small roles in the comedies The Extra Man and Adam Sandler’s Jack and Jill, and thrillers Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and The Son of No One.

She starred in Batman Begins in 2005, but pulled out of The Dark Knight.

Dead Accounts centres on a son who returns to his family’s home in Cincinnati flush with money, which raises red flags for his sister (Ms Holmes), who is living with their elderly parents.