Under $10k, huh? That's going to be tough. Does that include the cost of the electrician's wages... cause you can spend $10k on just that.
What are the physical dimensions of the space? How high is the ceiling? How large are you imagining the
stage area to typically be?
As far as the lighting
grid... You'll need professional help to determine how and where the pipes can be hung from the ceiling SAFELY.
Don't do this step yourself no matter how tempting... you need both an engineer from the district to consider the weight load on the building and a professional rigger to make sure the hanging connections are safe. You also need them to determine the safe working weight loads for you. Have them install a bunch of connection points to the building around the room and have the rigger teach you how to safely use all the
grid hanging hardware then in the future you can move pipes around the room and reconfigure the hardware however you want. As for the hardware itself you can get 1 1/2" Schedule 40 pipe at your local plumbing supply store for around $70 for a 21
foot section. Mine will cut and thread it to whatever length you want for two bucks per cut. There are a variety of products for locking
grid pipe together at right angles and at variable angles that run around $10-$25 depending on the device... available at your favorite theater dealer.
No matter how tempting don't rely on the chain and hardware at Home Depot. It is not safe for
overhead lifting. Again consult a real rigger and they will hook you up with the good stuff and teach you how to use it safely.
If you have a low ceiling, is there a false ceiling that could be removed to give you more height? There's nothing worse than theater with low ceilings.
It definitely sounds like you don't have enough money to buy any sort of real
dimmer racks. You could afford a few basic shoe boxes on your budget.
Do you have any lighting gear already? If you do then using what you have with shoeboxes makes sense. If you don't then you might want to go the Chinese
LED route. It'll keep the room cooler, save on electricity... maybe you can get the district to kick in a little more cash if you sell them on how energy efficient the
LED's will be and how it will save them on
HVAC bill as well.
The more details and data you can give us about what you have, what you hope for, what's already in the room and what isn't in the room, the more ideas we can give you about how to pull this off.