When Parliament-Funkadelic, George Clinton’s sartorially adventurous music collective, played arena shows in the 1970s, the boisterous crowds would reach a fever pitch midway through the concert when a fire-spitting flying saucer descended from the rafters, landing onstage amid smoke and blaring horns.

Most of those fans probably didn’t know that the prop — the Mothership, it was called, one of the most outlandish stage effects in a decade full of rock spectacles — was the work of a noted Broadway lighting designer, Jules Fisher, and a four-time Tony Award-winning set designer, Peter Larkin.

“When it landed,” Mr. Fisher recalled in a telephone interview, “a door opened and George Clinton came out.” At the show’s end, it blasted off and disappeared skyward.

The Mothership’s co-designer, Mr. Larkin, died on Dec. 16 at 93 at his home in Bridgehampton, N.Y., Marla Strick, his daughter-in-law, said. He had designed sets for 45 Broadway productions and worked as production designer on more than two dozen movies, including “Tootsie” (1982), “House of Cards” (1993) and “Miss Congeniality” (2000).