A colleague of mine has a nice setup that allows him to sit comfortably while filming. The main equipment difference is his camera, Panasonic has two remote controller ports, one for the iris, the other for the zoom and focus while my Sony Z1U, doesn't seem to allow for remote iris control (I'm using Varizoom rock controller).

This small difference means, that I have to stand to reach the iris dial on the camera to adjust the exposure during the performance and for the same reason the camera can't be too high on the tripod, so I get heads of people who are getting up/sitting down during the performance. I'm curious what others do for filming performances.

get up high and stay standing....stand on an applebox or something if you have to. that's what I've done in the past