PEORIA, Ill. — Rocco Landesman, the fiery Broadway mogul who introduced the $100 ticket to the Great White Way, took a plastic seat in the auditorium at East Peoria High School. The tickets for this show, a special production of "Rent" on Friday night, cost $20.

That's higher than usual at this community theater, Eastlight. But it was an exceptional evening. Landesman, the new chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, was in the house with his wife, Debby, and the cheering crowd loved him for it.

"We could feel the energy before we got on stage," said Coleen Haddock, a high school math teacher who played the kooky performance artist Maureen. "The whole audience was on fire! It was so exciting! We all were hoping he'd come to Peoria."

Yes, Peoria — the city that Landesman managed to insult almost the moment he came to the NEA. "I don't know if there's a theater in Peoria," he told the New York Times, "but I would bet that it's not as good as (Chicago's) Steppenwolf or Goodman."

Peoria's not mad any more. Gently apprised of his mistake by two women — Kathy Chitwood, Eastlight's executive director, and Suzette Boulais, executive director of an advocacy organization called ArtsPartners of Central Illinois — Landesman figured he had a lot to learn. He decided to embark on a six-month "Art Works" tour, exploring music, theater, sculpture and similar endeavors outside the big cultural capitals. He wants to see for himself how art affects the economy in different cities and how it affects their residents' quality of life.

Still in the planning stages, the tour will bring him to his hometown, St. Louis, the week of Nov. 23. Visits to Memphis, Nashville and Paducah, Ky., will follow.

The first stop, though, had to be Peoria.

Accompanied by the two women he calls his "new best friends," a few developers and some artists, Landesman toured the warehouse district, a riverfront neighborhood of charming restaurants, galleries and old manufacturing buildings converted to artists' studios. A $136 million development, the Peoria Riverfront Museum and Caterpillar Experience, is going to be built there with a lot of support from Caterpillar and other local businesses.

That kind of public-private partnership makes sense to Landesman, who liked the whole neighborhood. "I had no awareness of any arts scene here," he admitted. "It's vibrant."

Landesman, 62, grew up immersed in the St. Louis version of that neighborhood, arty Gaslight Square. His family owned the Crystal Palace, a sophisticated club where Lenny Bruce and Nichols and May performed, where Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" had one of its first U.S. productions and where the improv troupe that would evolve into the Second City was born. As president of Jujamcyn, a major Broadway producer, Landesman took his "family business" to another level, producing shows like "Big River," "Angels in America" and "The Producers" (of $100 ticket fame).

So no question, Landesman knows the big-time arts scene. But Peoria's arts community happily filled him in on the joys of art at manageable proportions, sharing their thoughts at round tables and Q&A sessions through the day. Landesman was hailed like a rock star. Everybody wanted to tell him about their projects or show him their work; Tom Warren, who paints both portraits and houses, spent the day working on an airbrush portrait of Landesman that was ready to hang at the high school by showtime.

People didn't mind that the head of the NEA didn't know more about the Peoria arts scene; nobody does. Ceramic artist Jacob Grant, whose studio is in the warehouse district, described his arts community as "cool and supportive. It made me want to stay in Peoria (after he earned his MFA at Bradley University two years ago). Not to mention, studio space is very reasonable here."

But in the long shadows of St. Louis and Chicago, Peoria is easy to overlook, Grant added. Landesman urged Peoria artists to get past turf wars and join forces to call attention to their importance to the city, both for the quality of life there and for the economic contributions they make. "Arts jobs are real jobs," he reiterated all day.

Landesman noted that years ago, the NEA was associated with glamorous galas in Washington, New York or L.A. Those days are long gone, he said, and about time. Still, the reception in his honor in the high school cafeteria was a first for him, as was a play in a high school auditorium with an audience that cheered, whistled and applauded for every number. "They're really into it," Landesman said, as Boulais proclaimed it "a perfect, perfect day."

Of course, one visit doesn't turn Peoria into Paris or New York or, for that matter, Chicago. Boulais said she's OK with that. "We know where we are in the food chain," she said. "But art has to start somewhere. Like Peoria. We grow art here."