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Food prices! Gas prices! It seems as though the cost of everything fun is going through the roof and then some. Not at Olney Theatre Center. This month, they're celebrating the 60th anniversary of the National Players with a pay-what-you-can pricing system for the local kickoff of the touring company's latest productions.

"It's a very special year for us," says National Players artistic manager Clay Hopper. "This company is the oldest classical touring company in the country. The model goes back to before there was a regional theater movement, when actors would travel the country and carry their own sets, their own lights."

That's no longer how the National Players roll. Sure, their nine-month tour will cover 23,000 miles as they perform in 30 states and more than 100 venues, but these young acting professionals will stage "1984" and "As You Like It" along with an artistic team and plenty of support. Hopper, as director of "As You Like It," is part of that team.

"Directors are independent contractors," he admits. "Once the play opens, they're done…but I'm still involved with the evolution of the show. I can't go on tour with them, but I'll be checking in."

Because "shepherding these early actors through this stage of their career" is Hopper's job as artistic manager. The mission of the National Players, he says, "is two-fold.

"The first prong is to provide a bridge to the professional world. We have created a lot of actors," he explains. "That, to me, is a major part of the program: that so many actors on the D.C. scene started out right here at National Players."

The company's other objective is to bring theater to places that don't have the kind of "scene" that flourishes here in the capital area.

"A lot of places we go to don't have a theater company, much less a Shakespeare company," says Hopper. "To bring them a Shakespeare play that's engaging, funny and clear, it's a badge of honor for us."

Before they head to the hinterlands, the National Players have a tradition of sharing the theatrical wealth with theater lovers right here in Montgomery County. Tradition dictates that the troupe perform a modern classic plus a work by William Shakespeare; director Jeffrey Stanton takes the helm of "1984" starting next Wednesday and Thursday, Sept. 10 and 11, while Hopper's "As You Like It" plays on Sept. 17 and 18 – and the pricing is flexible, the better to encourage students and families.

"It's a very sophisticated comedy," says the director. "For the summer tour, we had done ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona.' That's very early Shakespeare, and in it, you can see him working out rough drafts of ‘As You Like It' and ‘Romeo and Juliet.'

"It's been an interesting trajectory, to do that play and then this one."

And since half the cast was in the summer tour, Hopper says he "thought it would be an interesting journey for them."

But perhaps the most interesting part of "As You Like It" is the director's decision to place it in "a world of its own." Hopper references swinging 1960s London a la Austin Powers as the background of a play about breaking through the preconceptions that sometimes hinder the path of love. Hopper paints the courtly world in black and white and keeps the Forest of Arden "saturated in color.

"The forest is rustic," says Hopper. "It's loose and free, honest and pure."

By emphasizing the play's identity as a comic pastoral, and adding an undercurrent of flower power, Hopper touches on Shakespeare's timeless themes: liberation and enlightenment. And by making the Bard accessible, he reaches back in his own memory to the first Shakespeare play he ever saw, "Twelfth Night," as a teenager at a Shakespeare Festival in North Carolina.

"I remember just being blown away," says Hopper, who earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in directing at the North Carolina School of the Arts before heading to Boston University for a master of fine arts degree in directing, meeting Olney artistic director Jim Petosa, and eventually settling in the D.C. area. "I had no idea. As a kid you learn Shakespeare in school and it's framed as a museum piece, a window into the past."

When he saw the actors onstage his perception changed.

"The people in the play were so vivid," he says. "I remember thinking, ‘Wow! This is not what I expected.

"I like reading Shakespeare as much as the next guy, but to hear the words being spoken is exhilarating."

And to pass that exhilaration on to a new generation at Olney?

Priceless.

National Players perform "1984" on Sept. 10 and 11 and "As You Like It" on Sept. 17 and 18 at 7:30 p.m. on the Historic Stage at Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney. Pay-What-You-Can tickets go on sale one hour prior to curtain. Call 301-924-3400 or visit www.olneytheatre.org.