Zorba is adapted from the novel "Zorba the Greek" by Nikos Kazantzakis. This play is set in Crete in 1924 and is about the friendship between Zorba and Nikos, an American student who has inherited an abandoned mine on Crete, and their romantic relationships with a local widow and a French woman - Hortense, respectively.

The musical has a book by Joseph Stein, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb.