The sleepy little river town of Winona, Minnesota is not a place where you would expect to find a major theater festival, but the founders of the new Great River Shakespeare Festival are banking on the allure of small-town America and its own no-frills approach to the Bard to draw a crowd ad build a lasting theatrical tradition. “It will take years of artistic nurturing, civic investment and theatrical brilliance to accomplish such goals. This first season is filled with education panels, discussions, music concerts — a regular Chatauqua — to energize the local population and lure the curious from around the region.”