Michael Anthony Forney likes to see how his work plays in front of a hometown crowd.

That’s why his latest stage play, “The Family Reunion” premieres Saturday at DeYor Performing Arts Center’s Ford Family Recital Hall.

“Youngstown, they gonna let you know from the beginning,” writer-director Forney said. “My hardest audience, my greatest but the most pressure audience, is Youngstown. Youngstown talks back to you. It’s the loudest crowd, the most energetic crowd.”

Things get loud in “The Family Reunion,” a play about a gathering of the Horton clan where some of the dirty laundry gets served up along with the food.

Forney drew on personal experience for the initial idea but said the drama that unfolds is the product of a writer’s imagination.

“I literally happened to be at a family function,” he said. “It wasn’t a reunion, but it was a family function. I’m looking at my favorite aunts and uncles and cousins. As in any family, I know things about the family, and I’m like, ‘We’re having fun and everything. There’s some funny stuff and there’s some other stuff, some messy stuff.”

In “The Family Reunion,” a relative decides to get all of the family together, unaware of all the drama that’s taken place among the guests in recent months.

“It would be something to see a movie or something like that, just how at a family reunion, everything came out instead of everything always being good,” Forney said. “There’s laughter. It’s a fun story, it’s not depressing or anything … (but) all the business comes out that we ain’t saying nothing about because we know it’s just either too embarrassing or too funny.”

The cast features Michael J Taylor Jr., Wayne Bonner Sr., Ram Torres-Ramirez, Jaylene Lewis, LaToya Jones, Rosetta Perry, LaTasha Dendy, Siea Glover, Lyric Williams, Lauren Williams, Ensley C. Thomas-Chester, Christian Dion, Wanda Clark and Grant Galloway.

Many of the actors Forney has worked with in the past, either for his other stage productions — “Why Me?” and “Why Me Too?” both were staged at Ford Family Recital Hall in 2023 — or for the shows he’s created for his ForneyExtreme TV streaming service. Despite that familiarity, Forney said he tries not to have any specific actor in mind when he’s writing.

“I never want to put myself in a box,” he said.

A crew will be filming Saturday’s performance, which eventually will be seen on ForneyExtreme TV. Clips also will be used to market the production in other cities.

In addition to Saturday’s performance in Youngstown, “The Family Reunion” will be staged Sunday in Columbus, and Forney plans to take the show to several other cities, including Detroit and Atlanta, which is the home base of Tyler Perry, who built an empire starting with touring stage productions and expanding to film and television.

“Tyler Perry’s not on the (theatrical production) market anymore. He’s well off into film. That market is open now. We need to attack it.” That’s why he wants to bring it to Atlanta.

“I’m going to go in Tyler Perry’s backyard and take his crown.”

If you go …

WHAT: “The Family Reunion.”

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

WHERE: Ford Family Recital Hall, DeYor Performing Arts Center, 260 W. Federal St., Youngstown.

HOW MUCH: Tickets range from $35 to $45 and are available online at

experienceyourarts.org and by calling 330-259-9651.