Zach is the director holding auditions in the Broadway musical A Chorus Line.
The musical takes place on a bare stage during auditions for an unnamed Broadway production. Zach watches and questions the dancers as they compete for a limited number of places in the chorus. His unseen position in the original staging emphasizes the pressure of the audition process, although later productions may make the character more visibly present.
A Chorus Line grew from recorded conversations with Broadway dancers led by choreographer Michael Bennett. The resulting musical opened at the Public Theater in 1975 before transferring to Broadway’s Shubert Theatre on July 25, 1975. It won nine Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and received the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Zach is not the auditioning dancer who tells the story of his family—that character is Paul. The show’s central concern is the personal cost and shared identity behind anonymous chorus performers.