What prompted you to write the play?

Three events on separate occasions struck me as worthy of plays. First there were the black and white beggars that I saw among the mostly black vendors at traffic lights in Johannesburg. Some of the urchin beggars carried signs with lame jokes; that's what they were selling. I was fascinated by the whole scenario and I vowed that one day I would write a play about it. Then one day I read a newspaper report about Francesca Zackey in Benoni and her visions of the Virgin Mary. Many people believed her and made pilgrimages to her home – hence the title of the play, Our Lady of Benoni. You will remember that there is a long history of young girls seeing visions of the Virgin Mary. There are many sites the world over, especially in Europe, where this has happened. The best known among them are Lourdes and Fatima. The Virgin Mary is always referred to in relation to a particular site, depending on the context; for instance, Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Lourdes. That is why we have Our Lady of Benoni. I decided that one day I would write a play about Francesca Zackey and filed the newspaper clippings recording her story.

On another occasion, years later, I read a fascinating book titled Virgin: The Untouched History by Hanne Blank (New York: Bloomsbury 2007). Blank has written a history of virginity and what it has come to mean in various cultures of the world. It was from this book that I learnt that some of the beliefs about virginity that we claim as African actually originated in Europe. Even virgin cures – such as the belief in some of the unenlightened corners of South Africa that having sex with a virgin cures AIDS – originate in Europe. The book is meticulously researched, with well-sourced case studies. This was an idea for another play.

In 2010 I was a writer-in-residence at Northwestern University in Evanston, near Chicago. That's where I decided to write one of these three plays. Then another idea struck me. Why three plays? The beggars, Zackey and virginity could all come together in a single play about the perils of virginity. That's how Our Lady of Benoni was born.