I have been asked to arrange for and conduct a pit orchestra (i have to hold auditions and everything) the music is in hard key sigs and i dont know if im gonna have too many dedicated people. I have somewhat of a shortage on instruments so wish me luck on this and i need advice on what to do.

Good luck.
get your orchestra to supply there own instruments.

i played pit for The Secret Garden. The thing about pit is that it is always hard keys, they change a LOT and the time signatures change a TON....its to keep the bad players out of the pit. Its a lot of fun if you can do it well. Just make sure that you tell your instrumentalists to mark EVERYTHING that they even THINK about messing up, and that practice at home is KEY!!

I played for that show aswell. I played percussion, so no hard keys for me.

As a conductor make sure you know your scores well. After that, hold practices often and tell you people to practice at home. Hard keys just comes with the territory. And hope that you have some good people. Being dedicated isn't a bad thing.