Some of my favorite gigs are where there's another keyboardist covering rhythm, and I simply get to do sweetening's. Sadly, my pit orchestra days were all on trombone (although we got caught short in a production of The Merry Widow one time, and I had to cover the bassoon parts as well on the t'bone - very weird!). Especially on Broadway and larger venues, I'm afraid I don't like the idea of keyboards covering players a venue that size COULD afford. It just smacks of cheapness and a willingness to short-change the audience, I'm sorry to say.

Got offered a couple of circus gigs back in my trombone days, but a few friends that had done them said they weren't treated that well. This was all before keyboards COULD replace real players. Gig might be fun now, but I'd still feel guilty about replacing some real players who would have had a gig back in the day...