Charles Gilbert Jr. is a writer, composer, director and educator who specializes in musical theater. Currently a Professor of Theater Arts in the Ira Brind School of Theater Arts at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Gilbert served as Director of the Brind School from 2008 to 2013 after heading its Musical Theater Program for nearly twenty years.[1] He developed the SAVI System of Singing-Acting and has taught students using this pedagogy in workshops and residencies in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark and Germany. Among his works for the musical stage is the 1990 musical Assassins,[2] source of the idea for Stephen Sondheim's Tony Award-winning musical of the same name.