He started acting under directorship of Anatoly Efros, however, they worked together for a brief period. Dzhigarkhanyan portrayed Molière in Mikhail Bulgakov's "The Cabal of Hypocrites". Following Efros's departure, Dzhigarkhanyan was given more roles, but he didn't wish to continue acting in a theater without the director he came for in the first place. In 1969, Dzhigarkhanyan joined Moscow's Mayakovsky Theatre by Andrey Goncharov's recommendation. He worked there until 1996 and for almost 30 years, he was "its leading actor". He first appeared in the role of Levinson in "The Rout" by Alexander Fadeyev. His later roles include Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams's "A Streetcar Named Desire". Since most of his roles were protagonistic, he moved to portray several antagonistic roles. Dzhigarkhanyan's portrayal of Socrates in Edvard Radzinsky's "Conversations with Socrates" in 1975 was acclaimed by critics and made him one of the "most interesting and strongest actors of the contemporary scene." During the 1970s and 1980s, Dzhigarkhanyan appeared less frequently on stage and more frequently in films and became known to the wider Soviet public. Even with decreased number of appearances on stage, Dzhigarkhanyan's every role became an object of discussion. The finest roles from this period include Big Daddy in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" by Tennessee Williams, Lord Bothwell in Robert Bolt's "Vivat! Vivat Regina!", Nero in Edvard Radzinsky's "Theater in the Time of Nero and Seneca" and others. Between 1989 and 1997, Dzhigarkhanyan taught the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK), Russia's state film school. In the mid-1990s, Dzhigarkhanyan decided to create a theater that would bring together his students at VGIK. In March 1996, Dzhigarkhanyan founded his own theater named "D" and currently named "Moscow Drama Theater headed by Armen Dzhigarkhanyan" (Московский драматический театр под руководством Армена Джигарханяна).