I have a couple dozen years backstage experience as well, and have a few thoughts to throw in the pot.
First, the Griptillian is a good knife with a solid lock, but I'd get the 154 CM or the D2 model over the S30V Ritter Grip. I had a full size Ritter Grip, and the flat grind blade makes deep cuts in material better than the standard Grip blade profile does, but I had problems with the S30V blade chipping, which surprised me because I didn't use the knife that hard. YMMV But I would stick with the less expensive steels. Having bought a couple knives with "exotic steel" like 440V, S30V, I have found that I've gone from blades that dull by rolling the edge over (440A) to blades that dull by chipping. I have been happy with D2,and VG10, but even a reasonably well made knife from 440A will last for a couple of years of backstage work before it's sharpened away to nothing.
Don't sweat the black coating too much. You will scuff and sharpen most of it off fairly soon if you are really using the knife and anyway it's unlikely that you will be flashing your knife around enough that you'll distract the audience from the show. And a black blade has one disadvantage backstage, it will blend in wherever you set it down, even when the worklights are on. A little time spent with some fine grit sandpaper will make any shiny blade fairly non-reflective.
The only downside to the Grip for electrics work is that the blade angle is a little on the thick side for pin splitting. Of course you would never be so foolish as to split pins with anything other than a Pin Splitter (tm) but...
My current EDC is a Spyderco D'Allara DP, another good knife with a solid lock and a thick blade, but it splits pins well because the blade is hollow ground. It's pretty big when folded though, so big I probably wouldn't have bought it if I could have tried one locally. The VG10 steel has performed well so far.
I would suggest you start sharpening with a guide so you can keep a constant bevel angle. There are lots out there, but DMT makes a plastic one that sells for less than $10 and works quite well if you don't treat it like it's made of anything stronger than plastic. I have bought a lot of sharpening stones over the years, and the ones I still use are diamond stones. Hype aside, I think EZ-Lap offers the best bang for the buck and they usually offer some great deals when they have a booth at a machinist's or sporting goods expo. But while you save up for sharpening stones you can do a surprisingly good job with a few dollars worth of sandpaper. Do a web search on "scary sharp"
