Actor David Lundy has won the Buffalo Toronto Public Media ARTIE Award for Outstanding Actor in a Leading Role for portraying Jan Karski in the play “Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski” at the Jewish Repertory Theater (JRT).
The award was presented on June 9, 2025 at the 34th Annual ARTIE Awards in Asbury Hall. Founded in 1991, the ARTIES honor local talent while supporting area charities. The production won great praise for both Lundy’s acting and the play’s premise. He previously won an ARTIE Award for Outstanding Actor in a Supporting Role in “Sight Unseen” (also at the JRT).
Lundy stated that “Playing Jan Karski is, perhaps, the most consequential experience in my career. I am in constant need of a challenge, and this provided it on every level - physically, artistically, politically, and spiritually. The play asks, ‘What can we do that we are not already doing?’ That is something I need to hold to tightly, especially now, when the weight of this world makes hiding from it a seemingly easy option.”
“Another line says, ‘We are being torn apart by immense gulfs of selfishness, distrust, fear, greed,
indifference, denial.’ For myself, in the present day, so strongly influenced by Karski, I think the most obscene word here is ‘indifference.’ Indifference is giving oneself permission for cowardice. God help us all to care very much about what happens to each other and to do the next brave thing that comes along!”
More information about the Jewish Repertory Theater production for which Lundy won the award is in our story about the penetrating questions raised by the play.
The play, co-written by Clark Young and Derek Goldman and directed at the JRT by Robert Waterhouse, was created by The Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University and was organized with the support of the Jan Karski Educational Foundation.
(Photo credit: Mari McNeil)
