Robin Antin Reveals The Lessons She Learned From Pussycat Dolls That Helped Her Manage Playground (Exclusive)

TooFab spoke to the superstar choreographer ahead of the premiere of her new Hulu reality series, Playground, which gives viewers a look inside the L.A.-based studio she heads with partner, Kenny Wormald, which churns out some of the best dancers in the game.

Antin detailed how dance has evolved since her days with The Pussycat Dolls, and shared how her time with the group prepared her to handle the hundreds of dancers that come in and out of Playground’s doors on a daily basis.

“It was five girls, and after I took myself out — and there were a lot of other girls in it — but the five girls that made up the pop group — it was definitely, it was a lot. It was five sisters that loved each other no matter what, that’s the way it is, and you know Nicole [Scherzinger] was definitely, she’s the face and sort of the leader of the Pussycat Dolls,” Antin recalled. “It was like a pyramid. It was sort of like, there’s Nicole and then there’s the girls and the girls and the girls, and then here I am sort of the manager along with the guy named Jeff Haddad, who really had to manage it in a way that everyone really got along, and had to put fires out.”

Which isn’t too unlike the management style she’s employed at Playground.

“As far as this goes, there’s 500 more people involved. We had to build a studio and choose where everything… where are people going to park? Where are they going to sign in? Who gets… nobody gets priority, but how are we going to manage if somebody comes in [and] says, ‘I want to take this dance class, and this dance class isn’t happening this day it’s happening another day,’ and then what we do with them?, so it’s all about the many parts of the business and having to deal with every single person,” she explained.

“And never walking away from everyone dealing with every single person, and dealing with them in an appropriate way,” Antin added. “So I would say the only difference is that there’s so many more people to deal with. We are giving people that chance in a building to be able to grow and become your own brand… and they’ve all become stars even before this reality show.”

With so much going on at the studio, from Megan Thee Stallion — one of the show’s producers — stopping by to pick new dancers for her tour, to selecting which dancers to teach which class, sometimes it can be hard for Antin and Wormald to see eye-to-eye on every decision at Playground, but Antin says they always find a way to make it work.

“If I do have an argument with Kenny or something like that, I try to win — I try to get my point across and a lot of the time, he doesn’t understand what I’m trying to say, and the greatest thing ever that I will start with, is we have had a lot of blowouts during the time of being partners, but it’s just normal,” Antin shared. “But we get along really well, we’ve known each other for many many years, he was a friend of mine from way back in the day. I am best friends with his wife. He is married to my best friend who was in my group called GRL, and that’s how they met.”

The dance pro credits their long history for the comfortability between the two but tips her hat to the show for forcing them to have some of those tougher conversations that they may not have had had the cameras not been rolling.

“The greatest thing, is that Kenny and I have a dynamic with each other that we will have a lot of disagreements, not fights, but disagreements, and so we get to get it all out on the show, which is so fun for us that after we got it out on the show, we would hug each other, and be like, ‘Ahh feels so good,’ you know? We got to actually say what we really feel, what we really mean, and what we really want to get out, when sometimes we’d walk into the studio and be like, ‘Ugh I can’t deal with you right now,'” She told TooFab. “Being owners and being partners, you have to know what you’re doing; you have to be business, you have to treat everyone with respect, and also put out a lot of fires and that’s our job — that’s what we have to do.”

She continued, “And we also want to make Playground as big as possible, and grow and open up more dance studios all around the world, but having a reality show is something that we never thought we would actually have, and here we are today with a reality show, and now the world gets to see what’s happening behind the scenes in a dance studio for dancers to come and live their dream.”

It’s also a dream come true for Antin, who called it one of the most exciting times in her life.

“This is probably one of the most exciting times of my life — besides creating The Pussycat Dolls, and coming off Burlesque the musical, you know, doing all the things that I’ve been doing that have just taken up so much of my life — more than ever in my whole entire life, it’s so crazy this is like — it’s amazing,” Antin gushed. “I feel really happy about everything that’s happening to me right now.”

All episodes of Playground will be available to stream July 26 on Hulu.