The Theater of Oleg Tabakov was formed in 1974 and emerged as an official, state-subsidized theater studio in 1987. It has resided in a basement in Chaplygin Street since 1977, and although the building has been refurbished, the size of the auditorium remains limited to some 120 seats. The theater, nicknamed the Tabakerka (snuff-box), is one of the most popular addresses in Moscow. This is largely due to the acting ensemble rather than the directors who have worked here or the kind of plays that form the repertoire.

Tabakov's theater started out with a group of student actors, and the ensemble has since recruited new actors and actresses from Tabakov's courses at the Moscow Art Theater School, which he heads. In the perestroika years, the Tabakerka made its reputation with lively performances of hitherto forbidden plays, such as Barrie Keefe's youth drama Gotcha! (Prischuchil), directed by Konstantin Raikin in 1984, or Mikhail Bulgakov's The Crazy Jourdain (Poloumnyi Zhurden, staged 1985), starring the comic actor Avangard Leontiev. Tabakov was quick to include works that had been released from the censors' shelves only during the glasnost period into his repertoire, such as Vasily Aksyonov's Surplussed Barrelware (Zatovarennaya bochkotara, staged 1989) or Aleksandr Galich's scandalous Silent Sailor Street (My Big Land, 1990), banned in an infamous affair in 1956 as the opening show for the new Sovremennik Theater, in which Tabakov has himself participated. The affair is rendered with great poignancy in Aleksandr Galich's novel The Dress Rehearsal. Tabakov also included in his repertoire such plays as Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues (staged 1987) or Jean-Paul Sartre's Huis Clos (staged 1992), but most important from the 1990s onward was his attempt to draw the best actors to his theater while never forgetting the need to give young directors a chance. In this way, some of his own actors (Aleksandr Marin, Vladimir Mashkov) began as directors in the Tabakerka, and other now well-known directors also worked in the theater. Andrei Zhitinkin, Valery Fokin, and Adolf Shapiro were all invited to the stage exactly at those points in their career when they were in difficulty: Fokin was waiting for the completion of his theater center; Zhitinkin was seeking a permanent appointment; Shapiro has been dismissed from his theater in Riga. The actors are the real trump card of the theater, and after Tabakov took on the artistic leadership of the Moscow Art Theater in 2000, many of them performed both at the Tabakerka and the Art Theater. Yevgeny Mironov is a brilliant stage actor and has starred in a number of Russian films; he has played the Impostor Dmitry in Declan Donnellan's Boris Godunov (2000) and the title role in Peter Stein's Hamlet (1998). Yevdokiya Ghermanova stars frequently in films. Vladimir Mashkov is a film star and considered to be Russia's sex symbol. Sergei Bezrukov has made a reputation for himself with a couple of stunning roles, including Felix Krull. He frequently appears in rather trashy films and also in boulevard theater shows. Aleksandr Marin has taken on the full-time task of staff director. Andrei Smolyakov is one of Tabakov's star actors both on stage and in film. Maria Zudina is a well-known actress and Tabakov's wife.