First Question: Why?
Second Question: What's the ladder supposed to do?
Third Question: What's your budget?
Suggestion One: Do some research about faux neon, it's a plastic used on stage props which, when sat beneath a high-end black-light, glows exactly like a neon light. The nice thing is, it's not as frigile and it's relatively cheap. Too, it can be easily wrapped around and mounted to most any kind of physical structure.
Suggestion Two: Instead of flourescent (which is not all that safe or cheap) look into the LED Light Strips now being used by interrior decorators as under-counter and accent lighting, you can get strands with the LEDs set tight enough that with a frosted plastic covering it will look just like a flourescent tube. Again, it is safer, easier to work with and in the long run, far less expensive when it comes to continual usel. Too, you can power them with a relatively small battery vs. running an electric chord from back stage to your prop.
DO NOTE: In that I'm ignorant as to what you are doing or why I'm going to assume that you want to do a black-art "Stairway to Heaven" type effect of which I know of only two versions ever created that work "mid-stage"; Mine, which does look like a stairway. . . each step lit up as I stepped up the riser. The other was created for the "Into the Night" show staring the late Richard Tutacco and is presently owned by Kirby VanBirch, last I heard. With this, you have a laser beam that is shot up, at an angle from the stage-floor. . . supposedly a flash-light beam . . . and the performer can walk up and down the length of it. (quite a cool piece. . . .wish I'd come up with it instead of the one I made.)
NO ONE has the performance rights to either of these which could get you into a sticky situation IF you plan on using the prop regularly, as part of a professional show. BUT, I'm always willing to work something out with any of my material and I won't ask an arm & a leg in doing so. . . I don't know what Kirby would say, he likes having exclusives.
Long-Story-Short, your method and set-up would have to be drastically different from the other two methods. . . not that hard to do BTW, you just need to think about it. There's all kinds of methods and as I said, if this is the direction you were thinking, feel free to drop me a note, I'm more than glad to give you some pointers. In the meantime, do that footwork I mentioned about the alternatives to flourescent.
