‘First Wives Club’ starts its Web networking early

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Phantomaniacs and Rentheads are fan networks that sprang from obsessive devotion to hit musicals. But with ‘The First Wives Club,’ the musical adaptation of the hit 1996 film that will feature new songs by Motown’s Holland-Dozier-Holland team, the social network predates the show’s opening.

Nobody will see the show until July 15, when it opens at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, but an affiliated social-networking site, firstwivesworld.com, has been going for more than a year.

While developing the show, which is about three fictional female friends trying to recover from midlife marital breakups, producers Paul Lambert and Jonas Neilson launched the site as a gathering place for real women going through divorce. ‘First Wives Club’ the website doesn’t seem to be pumping ‘First Wives Club’ the musical yet, but who knows what the future may bring?

— Mike Boehm

Lamont Dozier, from left, Eddie Holland and Brian Holland. Photo credit: Stephen Osman /Los Angeles Times