[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.
Prior to that, he served as head of UArts' Musical Theater Program since its inaugural year in 1990 and nurtured its growth to a position of national and international prominence.
Leading Lady, created in collaboration with playwright P. Seth Bauer, is the most recent of Gilbert's works for the musical stage; that project had a workshop production in 2013 at Drexel University in Philadelphia under the direction of Bill Fennelly.
Gilbert's score for My Father's Dragon (2017) is his most recent creation as Composer-in-Residence for Enchantment Theatre Company, which performs on tour at regional arts centers and schools throughout the US; previous works, including Peter Rabbit Tales, Aladdin and Other Enchanting Tales, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble and Harold and the Purple Crayon, have been enjoyed by thousands of young theater-goers in the past several years.
Gilbert's accomplishments as a stage director include the 2005 revival of Anyone Can Whistle at the Prince Music Theater, starring Chuck Wagner and Jane Summerhays, and two productions at the International Festival of Musical Theater in Cardiff, Wales: A Lyrical Opera Made By Two (Gertrude Stein and William Turner’s cubist lesbian romance) and Songs for a New World.