Feeling swamped, stumped or stuck when you face the challenges of singing onstage? Looking for ways to up your game in an exciting but highly competitive field of musical theater? For over 40 years, I’ve helped hundreds of singing actors like you (and your students) attain peak performance, using the principles of the SAVI System of Singer-Actor Training.

The SAVI Singing Actor, available online here (with autographed copies available here), is a compendium of powerful concepts and exercises that have helped generations of musical theater performers create work that is more:

  • SPECIFIC, filled with brave, bold choices.
  • AUTHENTIC, with a deep sense of personal truth.
  • VARIED, with new choices for each phrase in the “journey of the song.”
  • INTENSE, larger than life, with plenty of strength, stamina and control.

In the SAVI System, the foremost responsibility of the singing actor is to “create behavior” – in other words, to use your voice, eyes, face and body to express the drama. “SAVI Cards,” a featured component of the SAVI System, are an innovative training tool that will improve your ability to create expressive behavior and coordinate it with a musical score.

SAVI Cards are available at the SAVI Store!

The SAVI Singing Actor and SAVI Cards were launched at the 2019 International Thespian Festival, the premier event for high-achieving theater students and their teachers held annually in Lincoln, Nebraska. Since then, Charlie has taught SAVI workshops at SETC (the Southeastern Theatre Conference) in Louisville, taught a ten-week class at Drexel University, traveled to San Diego to introduce SAVI Cards to the Musical Theatre Educators Alliance, presented a workshop at Wyoming Seminary’s “Summer at Sem” performing arts camp, and launched the first online SAVI course, “Reboot Your Repertoire.” Across America and around the world, singing actors and their teachers and coaches are starting to “get SAVI!”

Working with SAVI Picture cards in Lincoln
Sean Elias of Baltimore’s Jemicy School gets an autographed SAVI book
Workshop at Music Theatre Philly
Demonstrating the SAVI Cards at MTEA in New York City January 2019
Students of Simon Ward in Australia work with SAVI Cards

What are people saying about SAVI?


“With the SAVI cards I have been able to find new choices and my creative brain has expanded to begin to think of more and more useful choices.”

“I feel like I have a better idea about what to do with myself in the practice room.”

“Working with the cards made me pay more attention to each individual line, finding something different to be excited about in each phrase, which brought much more variety to what I was doing.”

comments from SAVI class and workshop participants

Sign up now to join the SAVI VIP list and you’ll receive an excerpt of The SAVI Singing Actor; as a SAVI VIP, you’ll also receive priority offers to purchase SAVI Cards and The SAVI Singing Actor. Interested in scheduling a workshop or residency at your school or arts camp? Click here to contact Charlie Gilbert, the “SAVI Savant.”