Command Performance Meaning

(idiomatic, by extension) A task, activity, or other assignment which one undertakes in order to satisfy someone in authority, such as an employer.

Example: c. 1900, Richard Harding Davis, "Billy and the Big Stick":
  "I've been giving a ‘command’ performance for the president," explained the actor modestly.
1974 Feb. 4, "People," Time:
  Following a 1973 White House command performance and a TV special, Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back, Sinatra made his first nightclub appearance in three years at Las Vegas' Caesars Palace.
1998 Oct. 4, Alvin Klein, "Theater: A Potential New Star For an Ever-Rarer Art," New York Times (retrieved 11 Oct 2011):
  And he won't let his audience forget that he was part of a command performance for Queen Elizabeth II in June.
2002, Susan Wittig Albert, Indigo Dying (2004 Penguin edition), ISBN 9780425193778, p. 26:
  Some big client of Arthur's is coming to town, and Sally is supposed to entertain the man's wife. She says it's a command performance.