I'm writing a Musical based around a forum roleplay I did a few years back, but the music I am planning to use is in a Moulin Rouge style - meaning that the songs are re-recordings of established tracks that have been in public domain for a long time.

From what I gather this isn't exactly against the rules, but would the community consider this dishonest practice?

Wheeee~ POOM.

Seems fine to me. But does it count toward page count?

I would say that you could definitely use songs written by others (a term I've heard for such musicals in the past is "Jukebox musicals" -- like Mamma Mia, Jersey Boys, etc.). If you really wanted to be legitimate about it, though, you might want to find a way to exclude those songs from your page-count.

I'm doing similar to you only changing the lyrics about a bit - that way I can say i've actually worked on the songs and not just cut and paste the lyrics to fill the word count.

I suppose if the songs contribute to the script and make sense being there there's no harm in it.

I'm not the only one doing something like this?! Yay!

Are you guys doing a really Moulin Rouge! type thing (like songs from different artists) or a Mamma Mia type thing (songs from one artist)?