You've probably heard this piece of advice dished out to a nervous performer before: to relax, picture the audience naked. Last week, however, actors Maev Beaty and Erin Shields went one step further – and actually performed in front of a naked audience. In what may be a theatrical first, they held a special clothing-optional performance of their play Montparnasse at Toronto's Theatre Passe Muraille.

"I would say the advice should probably be rewritten," Beaty joked to me over the weekend, confessing that, rather than relaxing her, all the naked flesh reflecting the footlights briefly made her self-conscious. "It was like a whitey-pink wall facing us. It was incredible." Since the end of the 1960s, nudity has been a fairly common sight on stage, from Hair to Ian McKellen's King Lear. Nudity in the audience, however, has remained the kind of thing that gets you arrested – asPee Wee Herman learned.

Beaty and Shields's critically acclaimed two-woman show, Montparnasse, about nude models in 1920s Paris was the result of some creative marketing. Even people that might not admit it, are interested in nudity and the life of people who are naked in public. Groundwater Productions and Theatre Passe Muraille wanted to extend their marketing reach beyond Toronto's theatre-going crowd. They purposely targeted models, art students and, by programming two performances with American Sign Language interpretation, the city's deaf community.

But the most unconventional idea was the brainchild of producer Gideon Arthurs. The fact that the two lead actors are frequently nude as their characters pose for the likes of Picasso, Chagall, Pascin and Soutine spawned another marketing idea. Since Montparnasse is such a flesh-friendly show the producers decided to invite nudists to a private performance. Bare Oaks Family Naturist Park helped market the performance by creating a Facebook group--soon naturists were buying tickets from as far afield as Ottawa, Ontario, and across the border in Buffalo, New York. Why not get together with a group of nudists and enjoy some nude art.

News of the clothing-optional performance leaked out to the general public on Twitter, where many mistook it for an early April Fool's joke. But, nudists enjoying nude performances are no joke. "Who's paying to steam-clean the chairs afterwards?" Tweeted one local artist. Judging by the comments made to the actors as well as those online, Thursday's naturist spectators really appreciated being made to feel at home.

An even bigger marketing victory lies in the fact that 80% of the audience male and were not regular theatre-goers. As the near-capacity crowd proved, reaching out to non-traditional theatregoers – nudists or not – is a smart move.

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