The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, New York

Katie Holmes made her Broadway debut in 'All My Sons' Thursday night, and her husband Tom Cruise thought it was a knockout. When asked for his verdict on Holmes' performance, Cruise stopped for a moment while moving through the crowd at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, telling The Associated Press: "Did you see it? t It was extraordinary."

Hundreds of people bought tickets to see Holmes act on Broadway for the first time in a preview performance for the revival of "All My Sons," co-starring John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest and Patrick Wilson.

The audience collectively gasped when Cruise entered the theater moments before the curtain went up. While anti-Scientology protesters demonstrated outside, the movie star - and Hollywood's most famous Scientologist - mingled and shook hands with some other theatregoers who took photos and clapped. He then hugged Dustin Hoffman, who was sitting a few rows away, which drew another cheer inside the theatre. Amid the hubbub, it took awhile for people to take their seats. Then the moment they'd been waiting for arrived: Holmes and her fellow cast members stepped out on stage to start the play, which officially opens on October 16.

If Holmes felt nervous and jittery, she didn't show it. She delivered her lines with confidence and projected her girlish voice so it could be heard loud and clear. She danced around on stage with gusto. She looked lovely in two dresses that highlighted her trim yet shapely figure. She wore a brown shoulder-length hairpiece to hide her trendy pixie cut.

And she received a standing ovation afterward. It's safe to say that no one probably clapped harder than Cruise. 'All My Sons' concerns businessman Joe Keller (Lithgow) whose factory supplied defective cylinder parts to the military, resulting in the deaths of 21 pilots during World War II. Yet it was his business partner who went to jail for the mistake.