The Utah Musical Theatre, or the UMT, started in 1981 as a summer theatre program to expand the theatre offerings of Weber State University. The goal was to be a semi-professional theatre group and it was to be housed in the Val A. Browning Center at Weber State University. The program would also focus on strictly producing musicals. The program went for a good 27 years before being forced to shut down due to lack of funding and community support. During its running years, the program offered many large scale and smaller scale musicals. It was a very community involved program offering season tickets which could be purchased by members of the community to see all the shows to be put on for the summer. There was also a theatre camp later on called Kids Act Up that theatre goers could sign their children up for to learn more about producing and performing in theatre. The program began to lose funding in early 2000 and was eventually forced to shut down in 2007. This was due to the inability of the company to raise adequate funds to produce any large-scale musicals. The program ended with Weber State planning to use some of the UMT resources to further their other performing arts endeavors for the College of Arts and Humanities.