When creating a play about the five senses, a good theme would be a season of the year. In a play about summer, for example, you can pose questions that relate to the five senses. What does summer look like? What does summer taste like, sound like, smell like and feel like? Do the answers change based on considerations such as location? For example, is a Pennsylvania summer different from summer in Florida?
Colors, months of the year, emotions and music are some other good ideas for a play about the five senses.
Before beginning a play on the five senses, it would be helpful to research other creative expressions on the same topic. Songs, games, fiction and poems can be a valuable source of inspiration or ideas. If you are a teacher, brainstorming with students is often a great way to find ideas for playwriting. If you are a student, or working on your own, brainstorming with friends, and taking themes, issues and ideas from popular culture, can be a helpful way of coming up with a dramatic angle on the five senses that you may not have thought of on your own.
A play based on the five senses can lend itself to some interesting character creations. One idea would be to use five characters who have each been deprived of one of the five senses, and need to depend on one another to navigate their way through the sense they lack. Another idea would be to have a character who is in possession of all five senses, but loses one (or has it taken away or stolen) and needs to gain it back though a series of trials. This ensures that the character who lost one of the five senses will have a greater appreciation of the sense that was lost. Another idea would be to use the five senses themselves as characters, a challenging and creative way to personify the five senses in dramatic form.