“For me, the circus is a magic show that appears and disappears like a world. A circus is disturbing. It is profound.”

—Marc Chagall

The Ringmaster

There is no place like the backstage of a circus — in this case the production of “Out of This World.” Unicyclists weave past motorcyclists who rev up to roll into their globe of steel. Clowns in slapstick shoes cross paths with lions waiting in cages for their cues. Acrobats sidestep trapezists who pull up on a practice bar. Poodles in a wagon zip by equestrians who jog in place next to their horses.

Above it all, literally, stands the ringmaster — Johnathan Lee Iverson, the 6-foot, 5-inch man who became the first African-American and the youngest person in Ringling history to don the bedazzled top hat and tails. (Last year, a woman stepped in as ringmaster for the first time in the other show.) With his megaphone tenor and towering presence, Mr. Iverson opens the circus on a float — a rocket ship, in this case.

These days, with the circus ambling toward its final farewell, Mr. Iverson does less presiding than marveling and philosophizing over this “theater of the impossible” and the talent it boasts. He has spent 18 years and five months as ringmaster with Ringling; the circus is where he married, welcomed a son and daughter (who are now in the show), saw the world unfurl through the window of a train (his home) and adopted an extended family of international circus performers.

“I wear the moniker of circus freak with pride,” said Mr. Iverson, 41, who grew up in Manhattan and sang with the Boys Choir of Harlem.

But let’s be clear, he said: His job is the least death-defying of the bunch.

“There is nothing miraculous about what I’m doing,” Mr. Iverson said, as he sat in his dressing room at the Verizon Center before donning his topcoat. “I miss a note, or crack, or sound off pitch, I will live.”

The excitement of the circus is rooted in the possibility of things going horribly wrong. There are no stunt doubles, no C.G.I., no “make-believe,” Mr. Iverson said. Take the eight motorcyclists who race at 65 miles an hour around the steel globe within a foot of each other. Or the equestrian who shimmies under the belly of a horse as it races 25 miles an hour in the ring at a tilt.