Berkshire Talking Chronicle Launches Audio Drama for Sight-impaired Audiences
PITTSFIELD — Berkshire Talking Chronicle, a radio reading service provided by UCP of Western Massachusetts, has launched The 413, a serialized audio mystery drama created specifically for sight- and print-impaired audiences and broadcast on WRRS 104.3 LPFM Pittsfield.
The show follows a group of college friends working over winter break in the Berkshires who stumble into a decades-old disappearance and discover it may be happening again. When a woman vanishes from a local diner, leaving only a cryptic note reading, “I finally ordered what I wanted,” at the same booth where her grandmother disappeared 40 years earlier, the friends are pulled into a mystery that spans generations.
The first season, “The Holiday Shift,” is a three-episode arc now available through Berkshire Talking Chronicle’s broadcast platforms.
The 413 was meticulously designed using “Theater of the Mind” principles, ensuring total accessibility. Every plot point, clue, and character interaction is fully comprehensible from the audio alone. The show achieves this by building its world for the ear: characters identify themselves naturally in dialogue, entrances and exits are acknowledged by others, and no visual element is left unspoken.
“When you’re creating for an audience that can’t see, every line has to carry more weight,” said Tina Brissette, the show’s creator and producer. “It’s a discipline that actually makes the writing stronger, and it benefits all listeners, not just our target audience.”
The 413 is distinguished from traditional audio dramas by its production method and its openness about it. The show was developed using AI tools at every stage: collaborative scriptwriting with Claude (by Anthropic), synthesized voice performances and sound design through ElevenLabs, and AI-generated music and sound effects.
The production is fully transparent about this process. Each episode is followed by a behind-the-scenes conversation between host Adam Santos and Brissette, in which they discuss story decisions, the AI tools used to produce the episode, and how sight- and print-impaired listeners can access those same tools in their own lives.
“This isn’t about pushing a button and getting a finished product,” Brissette said. “It’s a collaboration between human creativity and technological tools. I make every creative decision, story direction, voice selection, scene pacing, and editing. AI gives me raw material. The craft of shaping it into something that connects is still human work.”
The project grew out of her volunteer work with the Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) in Berkshire County, where she has been leading AI literacy workshops for lifelong learners. Through that work, she connected with Berkshire Talking Chronicle (BTC) Station Manager Elizabeth Irwin, who invited her to create content for BTC’s specialized audience.
Rather than produce a straightforward technology program, Bressette proposed something more ambitious: an original mystery series that would demonstrate AI’s creative potential while delivering genuine entertainment and serving as a model for how emerging tools can expand accessibility and opportunity for creators at any experience level.
The 413 serves dual audiences: sight- and print-impaired high school and college students ages 16 to 22, and AI-curious adults age 55 and older. The show aims to build technological confidence through storytelling rather than instruction alone.