DeFrees has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Virginia as well as a law degree from the University of Texas, and she is a published writer and an editor. In the following essay, DeFrees discusses the notion of forging an identity within the inevitable confines of family relationship.

Throughout her career, playwright Wendy Wasserstein has focused relentlessly on the issue of a woman's right to own her independence, strength, and integrity in what is essentially a "man's world." In seeking this independence, her characters—and the characters in The Sisters Rosensweig are no exception—often undergo some kind of transformation, either a change of circumstance or a change of mind. In The Sisters Rosensweig, Wasserstein's women do both: in bringing together three Jewish-American sisters in the physical setting of Queen Anne's Gate in London, Wasserstein allows the mundane event of a birthday...