Dorothea is looking for the novella The Darfsteller by Walter M. Miller Jr., probably best known for Canticle for Leibowitz.
“Darfsteller” appears to be a play on the German word Darsteller (actor).
(Sorry about the double ping; I can never seem to do that right.)

THANK YOU! Thank you ever so!
Double-ping, no problem. I think WordPress (rather stupidly) accepts both pingback and trackback from the same post, so the problem isn’t on your end but on mine.
Thank you thank you thank you! Will go hunting anthologies right away.