In 1991, he embarked on a serious acting career, portraying police detective Scotty Appleton in Mario Van Peebles ' feature film New Jack City, gang leader Odessa ( alongside Denzel Washington and John Lithgow ) in Ricochet ( 1991 ), gang leader King James in Trespass ( 1992 ), followed by a notable lead role performance in Surviving the Game ( 1994 ), in addition to many supporting roles, such as J-Bone in Johnny Mnemonic ( 1995 ), and the marsupial mutant T-Saint in Tank Girl ( 1995 ).

He followed this up with a critically acclaimed performance in Martin Scorsese's 1983 film, The King of Comedy, in which Lewis plays a late-night TV host plagued by obsessive fans ( played by Robert De Niro and Sandra Bernhard ).

The play's respectability was assured in 1946 when a charity performance was attended by King George VI.

In 1657 at the Royal Palace of El Pardo, King Philip IV of Spain, Queen Mariana and their court attended the first performance of a new comedy by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, with music by Juan Hidalgo de Polanco.

It becomes the most financially successful film version of a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical up to that time, and the only one to win an acting Oscar ( Yul Brynner wins Best Actor for his performance as the King of Siam ).

* c. 430 BC: First performance of Sophocles's Oedipus the King.

* December 26 ( St. Stephen's night ) – First recorded performance of Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear, before King James I of England in the banqueting hall of Whitehall Palace.

At the end of the first performance, the audience called for Wagner, who appeared at the front of the Royal box, which he had been sharing with King Ludwig.

King George V and Queen Mary attended the performance on election night and received Coward in the Royal Box during the second interval.

A famous early practitioner was Maud Allan who in 1907 gave a private performance of the dance to King Edward VII.

Wagner wanted this opera to be premiered as part of the entire cycle, but was forced to allow the performance at the insistence of his patron King Ludwig II of Bavaria.

The band's 1919 appearance at the London Hippodrome was the first official jazz gig by any band in the United Kingdom and was followed by a command performance for King George V at Buckingham Palace.

Even King Louis Philippe rented out the room for a private performance.

In his Arden edition, R. A. Foakes argues for a date of 1605 – 6, because one of Shakespeare's sources, The True Chronicle History of King Leir, was not published until 1605 ; close correspondences between that play and Shakespeare's suggest that he may have been working from a text ( rather than from recollections of a performance ).

Poel was influenced by a performance of King Lear directed by Jocza Savits at the Hoftheater in Munich in 1890, set on an apron stage with a three-tier Globe-like reconstruction theatre as its backdrop.

Gwynne's performance as Jud Crandall in Pet Sematary was based on author Stephen King himself, who is also quite tall — only an inch shorter than the actor — and uses a similarly thick Maine dialect.

" The British press reported a triumphant royal command performance ; The Illustrated London News wrote, " Herr Jacques Offenbach, the astonishing Violoncellist, performed on Thursday evening at Windsor before the Emperor of Russia, the King of Saxony, Queen Victoria, and Prince Albert with great success.

Shorty had been in Dominica during an Exile One performance of cadence-lypso, and collaborated with Dominica's 1969 Calypso King, Lord Tokyo and two calypso lyricists, Chris Seraphine and Pat Aaron in the early 1970s, who wrote him some creole lyrics.

A play within a play also occurs in the musical The King and I, where Princess Tuptim and the royal dancers give a performance of Small House of Uncle Thomas ( or Uncle Tom's Cabin ) to their English guests.

* Brian Keene's short story "' The King ,' in: Yellow ", recounts the story of a modern-day couple who attend a performance of the play performed by " actors " who strongly resemble deceased singers and musicians such as Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix — and Elvis Presley as " The King ".

* The Call of Cthulhu role-playing game has featured the Hastur mythos and the King in Yellow over the years ; one prominent example is the campaign Tatters of the King which also includes extracts from the play, as well as an early scene in which the player characters attend an ill-fated performance.

A pivotal moment occurred when the Jingju performer playing Older Daughter ( a conflation of Goneril and Regan ) stabbed the Noh-performed Lear whose " falling pine " deadfall, straight face-forward into the stage, astonished the audience, in what Yong Li Lan describes as a " triumph through the moving power of noh performance at the very moment of his character's defeat ".

In 2004, a poll of actors of the Royal Shakespeare Company, including Ian McKellen, Donald Sinden, Janet Suzman, Ian Richardson, Antony Sher and Corin Redgrave, acclaimed his Lear as the greatest Shakespearean performance ever.

He received the 1967 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for his performance as Lenny in The Homecoming and the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of King Lear.

* William Shakespeare – Macbeth ( possible first performance ); King Lear ( first recorded performance )

McCoy performing with Sandi Toksvig in The Lovely Russell Concert in June 2008. McCoy has appeared with the Royal Shakespeare Company in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and in King Lear in 2007, playing the Fool to Ian McKellen's Lear, a performance which made use of McCoy's ability to play the spoons.

Following Lear he starred in the title role of Cyrano at The Shakespeare Theatre, in Washington, D. C., almost every performance of which ended with a standing ovation, and for which Geraint won the prestigious " Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Resident Play ".

Portrayals in 1892 of the characters of Wolsey in Henry VIII and of the title character in King Lear were followed in 1893 by a performance of Becket in Tennyson's play of the same name.

Nine performances at Court marked the winter of 1606 – 7, including a December 26 performance of King Lear ; the following winter, 1607 – 8, saw thirteen Court appearances.

In 1968 his performance as King Lear with Stacy Keach as Edmund, René Auberjonois as the Fool and Philip Bosco as Kent achieved the longest run for the play in Broadway history, although the 1950 Broadway production of the play, with Louis Calhern as Lear, played 48 performances as opposed to Cobb's 47.

According to a 1996 profile by Jonathan Rigby, the New Statesmans T C Worsley wrote of his performance in a star-studded revival of King Lear that " Mr Morell's Kent is the best I remember since Sir Ralph Richardson's.

He is mentioned in The Kenneth Williams Diaries, where the acerbic British actor / comedian mentions how impressed he was by the performance of the young understudy who took over a stage performance as King Lear, when the aging, alcoholic star who was supposed to play the role was unable to perform.

The plays have often been drastically adapted in performance ; the version of King Lear used in performance between 1681 and 1838, for instance, had a happy ending, provided by a rewrite by the Irish poet Nahum Tate.

A stroke in 1920 while vacationing in upstate New York nearly ended his acting career, although he continued to appear occasionally, usually as part of a benefit performance for himself, often playing Act I of The Yiddish King Lear: the title character remains seated throughout the entire act.

With over 350 screens in 20 countries, this single performance of King Lear was seen by more than 30, 000 people.

Abraham Cahan, editor of the Jewish Daily Forward, said of her performance in Mirele Efros, " Liptzin's pride, her humor, her shrewdness, come not from Lithuania, but from Shakespeare ," describing her as "... a Lear ... a queen ..."

Theater Magazine wrote of Adler's performance in a 1901 revival of The Yiddish King Lear, " No finer acting has ever been seen in New York than Adler's gradual transition from the high estate of the Hebrew father distributing his bounty in the opening scenes to the quavering blind beggar of later developments.

To do this successfully required great skill and a special talent for both solemn and ribald raillery, a talent not bestowed on many persons, but one with which Milton was marked as being endowed and in which, at least in this performance, he obviously reveled.

but even in that famous passage, Milton was aiming not at the theatricals as such but at their performance by ' persons either enter'd, or presently to enter into the ministry.

Robby's performance last year was tremendous.

In Boston, Edwin Booth was winding up a performance of A New Way To Pay Old Debts.

The play for Saturday night was to be a benefit performance of The Octoroon.

But then, after the little operetta had been given its feeble amateur rendering, everyone insisted that it was too good to be lost forever, and that the Royal Academy of Music must now have the manuscript in order to give it the really first-rate performance it merited.

Rousseau was aware that he must seem like a hypocrite, standing there and arguing that he could not possibly permit a public performance.

And that was why, on the day of the performance, when a carriage from the royal stables called to take him to the palace, he did not bother to shave.

The hen appeared to have no doubts as to her duties and was quick to settle down to the performance of them.

One part of her audience was totally engaged, the connoisseur witnessing a peculiarly fine performance of some ancient classic, the other part, the guest of the connoisseur, attentive as one who must take an intelligent interest in that which he does not fully understand.

This project was started at a time when there was a critical need for a high-energy fuel to provide an extra margin of range for high performance aircraft, particularly our heavy bombers.

Chicago was also a welcome host: there, in 1921, Prokofieff conducted the world premiere of the Love For Three Oranges, and played the first performance of his Third Piano Concerto.

As he leads the Neurenschatz Skolkau Orchestra, Schlek gives a tremendously inspired performance of both the Baslot and Rattzhenfuut concertos, including the controversial Tschilwyk cadenza, which was included at the conductor's insistence.

Leaving the theatre after the performance, I had a flash of intuition that life, after all ( as Rilke said ), is just a search for the nonexistent cup of hot coffee, and that this unpretentious, moving, clever, bitter slice of life was the greatest thing to happen to the American theatre since Brooks Atkinson retired.

Interviewing, checking references, training the salesmen, having them go with more experienced salesmen was expensive -- and the rate of attrition due to resignations or unsatisfactory performance was too high.

Andy's performance was scheduled for eleven o'clock.

It was what they said before every performance but tonight it sounded different, as if he really needed it.

The announcement that the city would sue for recovery on the performance bond was made by City Solicitor David Berger at a press conference following a meeting in the morning with Wagner and other officials of the city and the PTC as well as representatives of an engineering firm that was pulled off the El project before its completion in 1959.

Berger's decision to sue for the full amount of the performance bond was questioned by Wagner in the morning press conference.

Mankowski, the ball-hawking defensive expert, was cited for his performance against Bradley in St. Louis U.'s nationally televised victory.

The board's last money raising event was a performance by Harry Belafonte -- `` quite off-beat for this group '', decided some of the members.

Each high note had the crowd in ecstasy so that it stopped the show midway in the `` Mad Scene '', but the real reason was a realization of the extraordinary performance unfolding at the moment.