So my high school is putting on the musical "Working", and the design we are going for is suppose to look very rustic with pipes and scaffolding everywhere. Our director doesn't like the idea of having a railing on the stairs because it won't look right, but fire code insist all stairs above 4...
I would recommend a smaller type of tape, such as spike tape.
However if you truly are looking to avoid tape then I would recommend not using paint because when the paint dries and you coil your cable the dried paint will crack and over time completely fall off.
Another simple cheap way is to...
In the past four years my high school has done:
The Kings Stag (it allows you to add improvisation and your own scenes because it's comedia del arte)
Much Ado about nothing (also allows you to change things up, because it's Shakespeare)
The Crucible (Many high schools are afraid to do this play...