2k watt dimmer

A friend of mine has asked me to build him a light dimmer for some stage lights that range from 1000 to 2000 watts. I figure I'll just make all the dimmers rated for 2k watts to keep it simple. I'm not very familiar working with electronics off of 120V AC, I'm more into the digital and low voltage applications. With that being said, I've come across a few circuits in my research and would like some input. I'm thinking about using **broken link removed** circuit because I like that it has the LC circuit to help cut down on the buzzing that's normally associated with dimmers. I already have the triacs (BTA26-600BWRG) that are rated for 25 amps.
My questions are
1) can I use this circuit for 120V without modification, just replacing the triac
2) from what I've read I can use most any off the shelf diac, is that true
3) for the choke coil, if I use 16AWG wire how many turns and how large should the coils be (I don't have an inductance meter handy)
4) is there a dimmer circuit that's preferred on this forum

Sorry for all the questions, but I do not like working with house voltage.
As you can see I am new here, but I have looked around a bit and like what I see.

That look rather limited?, I would suggest you have a look here **broken link removed** which might suit your purposes better?.

Just though i'd mention you can buy a 2000w dimmer. I remember installing one a few years back. We had to special order it from an electrician's supply house and it was huge. I can't remember what it cost, but it wasn't chaep.

An ordinary cheap light dimmer has no output until the pot is turned up to about 1/3rd, then the lights suddenly come on at about 1/3rd max brightness. Then when the lights are lighted their brightness can be turned down to zero.

It was OK for my dining room but is not suitable for stage lighting.

With many cheap dimmers using triac and diac,"pop on" rather than dim up smoothly. One technique used in some cheap dimmers to allow dimming up smoothly is to place a trimmpot accross the control potentiometer. That trimmpot is set so that the dimmer works smoothly:
1.Set "Control" to minimum light level
2.Adjust trimmer to filaments just "glow"
3.Turn off dimmer
4.Turn on dimmer to see if filaments "glow". If not... set trimmm... go to 3...
Continue until minimum voltage is supplied to lamps (filaments do not seem to glow at all).
When everything is properly adjusted, the dimmer will dim up from the lowest setting up to max brightness.
If you have adjusted trimmpot to too low value, you just can't dim the light bulb completely off (in some times this can be an intentional setting, for example in theatrical lighting where preheat is used).
You can also modify the capacitor (a small value parallel, to fine adjust), because the delay from mains zero crossing to triac triggerig is generated using circuit with resistor (above mentioned potentiometer and trimmpot), capacitor and diac (usually arround 30V).

Nigel - thanks for the link, let me study that and digest it first.

Andy - yep I know you can buy them, but the ones we found were around $250 if memory serves correctly. I'm sure I could build a comparable one for 1/10th that given the correct schematic.

em2006 - you mean something like this circuit (the 1kw dimmer about 1/3 down the page)