(Helayne Seidman)
CHORUS ‘SLIME’:Producer Tony Ponturo (above, with new flame Fran Kirmser) dumped Ruthe Ponturo (next page), who’s written a tell-all musical. (Ryan McCune / PatrickMcMullan.com)
Revenge is a dish best served — in front of an audience!
After Broadway big shot Tony Ponturo dumped his wife of 34 years, she didn’t sing the blues — she created a tell-all musical inspired by her hubby, and sold jewelry he gave her to pay for it.
“I was determined not to let this event ruin my life,” Ruthe Ponturo told The Post. “This is empowering.”
Tony Ponturo, 60, the Tony-award-winning producer of “Memphis,” left his better half in March 2011 for his foxy producing partner Fran Kirmser, a cocoa-maned minx 19 years his junior, his ex said.
“He told me he was in love with someone else and didn’t want to be married anymore,” said Ruthe, 63. “It’s pretty cliché, but I don’t think men ever think it’s a cliché.”
Still she was shocked.
“I couldn’t believe it. My parents were married almost 61 years, and I was positive we would be, too.”
The two first met as pages at NBC for “Saturday Night Live,” where their decades-long relationship started with a blushing glance.
“I thought he was cute; hopefully he thought I was cute, too,” Ruthe said.
Tony later went to work for Anheuser-Busch, where he rose to vice president of global media, sports and entertainment marketing, enabling the couple’s jet-setting lifestyle.
“We went to every Olympics, the Oscars. We went everywhere together,” recalled Ruthe, a native Kentuckian who has kept her accent.
But looking back, there were red flags.
“At the time you don’t allow yourself to see them,” she said.
Tony eventually exited stage left from the couple’s posh Park Avenue duplex to a man cave on Central Park West, leaving behind Ruthe and their three cats, Lizzy, Mr. Darcy and Mr. Knightly — named after Jane Austen characters.
It took Ruthe about a month to process it all. And then, in the shower, a song of her own creation popped into her head.
“That brain behind your zipper/Made you a liar and pretty mean/You’d better get Viagra/To fill out those designer jeans,” goes the tune, called “Bitter Pill,” the first of 25 songs she would eventually co-write with John Thomas Fischer.
To get the show up and running, Ruthe hocked $30,000 worth of jewelry — including her wedding ring — that Tony had given her over the course of their marriage.
“It was enough to get us started” on her musical, Ruthe said.
A year and a half later, “Divorce — The Musical” is set to debut on Sept. 28 at the Triad Theatre on the Upper West Side.
Ruthe, a choreographer and teacher, will be performing the majority of the songs, along with two of her former students.
Tony said he was aware of the show, but refused to comment further.
The eclectic collection of tunes includes every genre imaginable, from country to doo-wop to rap, with heartfelt lyrics such as: “You fell hook, line and sinker/Not a good thinker/She a real slinker/You a real stinker,” from a number called “You Were a Whole Lot Cuter.”
But the comedic cabaret is no “Cat on a Hot Tin Goof” — Ruthe hopes the show will inspire everyone going through a divorce.
“We want people to come and feel really good about themselves, and say, ‘She did this, look what I can do,’ ” she said.