Anybody remember this story?
Apropos of discussions in information and labor, I am recalling a science-fiction story I read twenty years ago and have never seen again. If anybody can point me to it, I’ll be most grateful.
The setup: Theatre stages are no longer populated by human beings. Instead, android “dolls” are made to resemble popular actors and actresses, and “taped” with the actor/actress’s individual habits of speech and motion. The dolls are transported hither and yon to star on stages, though some artificial scarcity is maintained, presumably to whet interest.
Actors who have dolls get royalties from the dolls’ use. Actors who aren’t popular enough to have dolls, or whose art is too subtle to be tape-able, are plain old out of luck.
The plot involves an actor fallen on hard luck because he’s too good to be a doll. He gets tapped suddenly to walk on in a leading role because the doll intended to play it never shows up. The character the protagonist is to play gets shot in the third act; the desperate actor swaps out the stage gun for a real, loaded one. I don’t recall the denouement.
The “little black box” theme is heavily dwelt upon, I recall; “what would you do if your job was replaced by a little black box?” “Make little black boxes.”
Does anyone remember this story but me?
Addendum: Katja remembers it. Yay! Now I have to go find it.