Playwright Stephen Karam’s high-school-set “Speech & Debate” is being adapted from off Broadway to the big screen.

“Speech,” which debuted in 2007 at the Roundabout Underground in New York, centers on a high school drama queen who recruits a set of misfits to join the speech and debate club. The material deals with free speech and coming-of-age themes and also is described as a high school comedy in the manner of “Election” and “Juno.”

Karam, who has never penned a film script, will adapt his stage play.

Independent studio Overture Films, a subsidiary of Liberty Media, has acquired rights to the play and is developing the script. Jason Blum will produce the project.

Several producers had been circling the project, including play-to-film magnate Scott Rudin. Stage dramas have become more popular as source material for specialty divisions; Miramax, for instance, in the fall will release the Rudin-produced “Doubt,” which John Patrick Shanley directed and adapted from his Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

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