Contact, address and other such information for the National Tap Ensemble, USA

 

 Official closure dates for the main NTE office 

 

STARTING	UNTIL	NOTES

Important!
- Some staff members, at their discretion, may check their EMAIL during official closures and slow-downs (phone messages are usually NOT checked and/or retrieved.) If you have an emergency message for them, make sure you include the word "URGENT" on the subject line.

- The dates below are for the main office staff. This does NOT mean that the company itself is idle as company artists, guest artists and some staff members are often very busy during these times.

- These dates are provided for the public's convenience but they are not "written in stone" (we ain't no bureaucracy.)

- "Slow-down" means reduced activity for the NTE office staff (only important and/or emergency matters can be handled, primarily via email) as most staff members are on leave time or on a reduced work schedule.

 Postal address 

National Tap Ensemble
PO BOX 4102
Hagerstown MD 21741-4102
USA

TIPS

1 - Be sure to TYPE this address using a typewriter or a computer, as more and more mail gets lost due to handwritten addresses. Those can't go through the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) machines used by the Postal Service, and manual sorters seem to now throw away anything that gives them a hard time instead of returning the mail as they did in the good old days... (they deny it of course.)

2 - Need for your mail to get to us fast? In our experience simple Priority Mail with a typed address works quite reliably these days. Do NOT use Fedex or UPS to send Express/Next Day mail to us. Why? Because according to their OWN rules they do not deliver to Post Office Boxes, even though we have seen quite a few instances when they took the customer's money anyway, generating delays and quite a bit of frustration on the customer's side. T

3 - ALWAYS put a sticker at the top left of your envelope with your name and address. This is the only way of getting a good chance to get your mailing back in case it gets lost or incorrectly delivered.

 

	General Information/Main Staff Email: Need to register for a workshop, seminar or other program? Have a question about something that has not been answered on a FAQ page? Want to make a tax-deductible contribution? Need help with product orders? Have any general question? Contact the company staff and they will either direct you to the proper page on this web site or look into the matter and email back as specific an answer as they can.
	American Tap Dance Institute (higher-education division of NTE): Have a question for the Institute which has not been answered on an ATDI program's FAQ page or on that program's main page? Click here. Be sure to use this address and NOT the one above if you are inquiring about the "Spirit Of Tap" conference, or the Institute's Teacher Training and Certification Program (TTP)
	Public Relations Director: Click here. Use this contact: - For all the usual PR items, web link exchanges, etc. - Placing an advertisement in our Tap Dance Bulletin, a monthly tap dance newsletter that' is delivered via email and is the most widely read such publication in the world (over 4,000 subscribers.) It is inexpensive and incredibly effective since the vast majority of the readership is made of actual tappers. - If you are interested in booking concerts/shows for your theater or festival (NOT educational programs, although some of these may be added onto the main programs as a means of maximizing the impact of the company's visit in a community or region.) Commissioned works - including world premieres - are welcome and available upon request. Serious inquiries with substantial budgets only please. Also, please be sure to include in your initial inquiry:  1) The type of programs, or better yet the actual NTE concert program you are interested in    2) Actual or estimated dates (real, actual dates preferred) for event(s)  3) Budget range  - the budget range you're working with [Disclosure: while this information is absolutely necessary for us to consider an invitation and provide the correct estimate, it will be kept strictly confidential and may be provided with total confidence. The national tap dance company does NOT use outside "booking agents" who typically add another 20-50% to the artistic fees. Also, per its own strict rules as a non-profit organization, NTE carefully tailors program and cast sizes to a presenter's budget range and offers set fees with a total "no-haggle" and "no-last-minute-surprise" guarantee.) 4) Name and address of the theater/facility you are thinking of using for this NTE program. Please this page to verify if the stage floor meet our quality and safety criteria, if it does not the company can bring its own Portable Percussive Dance Floor and we will include that in the estimate.  5) Any other information which you believe is relevant or important in the context of your booking inquiry.
	Educational Programs: Interested in booking a cultural assembly program, workshop, residency or another educational program for your public or private school? Want to ask a question to cast members who have performed or taught at your public/private school? Please visit the Educational Programs gateway page and follow the relevant links.
	Want to invite members of the cast to teach master classes or workshops at your dance school or studio while they are on tour in your area? Please fill out Form 3 on the International Tap Dance Network page. You may also contact the ITDN Program Coordinator directly by clicking here.
	Director: Contact Chris Baker, Artistic & Education of the national tap dance company, by clicking here.
	Care to let us know what you think of this web site? The easiest way is to use the short, simple Feedback Form (Done browsing? Please let us know what you think of this web site...) on the home page.
	Encountering any difficulty accessing or viewing part(s) of this web site?  Any problem with submitting forms? For the visitor's convenience, a direct link to the web technicians can be found at the bottom of each page on this web site. Don't forget to tell them which browser and version of the browser you are using and to provide a very detailed description of the problem, and remember to set your browser to ALWAYS load "refreshed" pages!

 

 MUST-READ information about Email etiquette and courtesy policy 

When you write to any of our staff or cast members with a question or a thought, or to anyone for that matter, it is always a good idea to the simple, common courtesy of mentioning you first and last name at the bottom of your message (an email address is NOT the same thing as a first AND last name by itself, i.e. it doesn't state who you are.) Of course, you can set up just about any email software so that this is done automatically, i.e. your first, last name and email address automatically appear at the bottom of any email you send or reply to. It is also customary and highly recommended that you set up your email software so that any email message you send appears on the "from" line as in this example:

From      John Smith <jsmith@domainname.com>

This is a common method that is universally recognized. Aside from properly identifying the sender (critical in these spam-infested times) this standard setup has the major advantage of allowing for correct replies. Like the vast majority of professional organizations and businesses we use special software that "recognizes" your first and/or last name and automatically places it at the top of our replies (this is customized by each staff member, but typically the software would start the 1st line of the reply to you with "Dear John" or Dear Mr. Smith" as per the example above.) We receive a very high volume of email (over 25,000 messages a year) and this helps keep the NTE staff sane as we do not have to type headers or footers (signature area) in each and every reply message. Most importantly, we do try to help as many people as possible and we do try to answer all messages, but email messages that are not properly signed and/or do not clearly identify the sender cannot and will not get a reply from this organization. Thank you for your courtesy and thank you for your understanding.

HERE ARE A FEW OTHER TIPS AND A SHORT FAQ ABOUT EMAIL WHICH WE ARE HAPPY TO SHARE WITH YOU. UNLESS YOU ARE A COMPUTER EXPERT IT COULD SAVE YOU MANY. MANY HEADACHES!

- FROM (sender). See above.

- SUBJECT LINE. Be sure to ALWAYS type something on the subject line when you email someone. It's not just a matter of clarity and basic disclosure, it's important because more and more anti-spam systems automatically delete messages with empty subject lines, just like they delete or quarantine many other types of suspicious messages.

- Get yourself a good, reliable ISP and/or email service!
Why should you care? Because this is the 21st century! Email is now playing a crucial role in worldwide communications, just like the telephone did when it emerged decades ago. Not having email which you can trust means that sooner or later you WILL miss out on important information, have people give up on you, loose job opportunities, be regarded as unprofessional or even see your reputation take a plunge, miss out on great deals, be unable to respond to critical or time-sensitive notices, etc.

We cannot tell you what to do, but we can report on our actual experience with certain ISPs. Here are the ones that have caused problems ranging from serious to really horrible (this included at least three people who could not graduate from ATDI's Teacher Training & Certification Program in their first attempt because they thought they "didn't receive" important emails from the Institute and missed important deadlines when in fact records from the archive server showed that these emails were properly sent...) Here they are from the absolute worst to, well, the rather bad:
AOL
Earthlink 
Hotmail
Yahoo
MSN


There are hundreds of other, far better choices (do a Google search, also see the FAQ below.). Using a good email service is in your best interest.

Please note that the National Tap Ensemble uses safe, plain-text email extensively for official purposes (regular communications between staff, cast, program participants, sending receipts, notifications of acceptance, etc.) AND WILL ACCEPT NO RESPONSIBILITY WHATSOEVER FOR EMAIL DELIVERY PROBLEMS CAUSED BY THE USE OF UNRELIABLE ISPS OR EMAIL SOFTWARE, NOR CAN THIS BE THE REASON FOR REFUNDS OF ANY KIND.

FAQ

1. Your staff has been very helpful but every time I send you an email their reply starts with saying "Dear jnaughton@XYZ.com"  instead of Dear James. This is annoying, what can be done about it?
   As explained above, our software, like that of most "business/professional strength" systems, automatically picks up first and last name from the sender's field which most likely led to some messages to you being improperly addressed which isn't any more pleasant for the addressee than it is for any of our staff. This is bound to happen as we receive many messages and therefore tend to concentrate on the content (what we write) rather than what the software puts at the top of the message. Simply take a few minutes to set up your email software as per standard practice described above and this will never happen again!
    
2. I am attaching a copy of an spam email I just received from National Tap Ensemble. The message contains a nasty virus and the sender is clearly a @usatap.org address and I'm shocked, I never thought an organization like this would spam people!
   People on the national tap dance company's staff would never, EVER spam anyone. This would stand against many things we believe in, and if a staffer did that they'd risk getting fired! No, Jane, a quick look at the RFC-22 headers, confirmed by a further investigation by an experienced IT staffer, clearly show that this @usatap.org address was "spoofed." This means that some spammer forged their "sender" address. This is something they do millions of times with many legitimate organizations or businesses, and we have nothing to do with it. Also, just for the record, this message was sent in HTML and our system is set up so that we send ALL our email in PLAIN TEXT, WHICH MEANS IT IS ACTUALLY NOT POSSIBLE FOR US SEND OR PROPAGATE COMPUTER VIRUSES OR OTHER SUCH AWFUL THINGS. We strongly recommend that you DISABLE HTML IN YOUR EMAIL SOFTWARE PROGRAM.
    
3. I emailed you three weeks ago, I didn't get a reply...
   Several things could have happened:
   1 - IF YOU TYPED THE ADDRESS, you could have made a small typo (it's easy to do) which is enough to send your email to someone else or to a nonexistent email address, in which case it probably ended up being deleted. There is an easy way around that. ALWAYS COPY AND PASTE AN EMAIL ADDRESS, NEVER, EVER TYPE IT! Another way or eliminating typos is to pull the address from your address book.
   2 - IF YOU LEFT THE SUBJECT LINE BLANK, YOUR EMAIL MAY HAVE BEEN TREATED AS SPAM AND AUTOMATICALLY DELETED (more and more spammers use this trick to force unsuspecting people to open an email message, before they know it they click on an attractive URL and a computer virus, trojan horse, backdoor program, etc. gets quietly installed on their computer...

More questions? Send them our way (see contact list above.)

To get on the company's mailing list and/or receive the monthly, and FREE Tap Dance Bulletin

Click here and take a few minutes to fill out the form that best applies to you.