A travelling company of actors led by Anton Karidian and his daughter Lenore, which toured Federation worlds performing Shakespeare while hiding the former governor Kodos of Tarsus IV.
The Karidian Company of Players is a theatre troupe that travels from planet to planet under the sponsorship of the Galactic Cultural Exchange Project. Its leading man, Anton Karidian, and his daughter Lenore take the principal roles.
The company appears in The Conscience of the King. Kirk sees it perform Macbeth on Planet Q after a friend insists that Karidian is really Kodos the Executioner. Kirk arranges for the troupe to be stranded so that the Enterprise must carry it on to Benecia, and the players stage Hamlet for the crew.
It emerges that Lenore has been murdering the surviving witnesses to her father's crimes wherever the company played. Karidian dies shielding Kirk from her phaser, and the tour ends with Lenore committed to care.